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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



4 i. 



The Ideals 

of the 

LC. S. Fraternity 

of the World 



A Commentary Upon the Ritual 

of Initiation in the 

Matriculate Degree 




1908 



The Fraternity Supply Company 

Scranton, Pennsylvania 



,1> 



UBKARY of CONGRESS. 
Two CoplW Keceivod 

MAR 231908 

jQ^nntu envy _ 

JYUa 2.1 «°8 

slass A xxci wo. 

COPY B. 



Copyright, 1908, by 
The Fraternity Supply Company 



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Preface 


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The purpose of this book will be readily seen as its 
pages are read : it is intended to illustrate and enforce 
the ritual of obligation used.in the Matriculate Degree 
of the I. C. S. FRATERNITY OF THE WORLD. 
The language of a ritual must necessarily be brief 
and ornate — a stately epitome of the ideals for which 
the Order stands. If it is of any permanent value it 
must have behind it the testimony of experience. 
Such testimony is gathered and arranged in the fol- 
lowing chapters, with the sincere hope that it may 
stimulate the members of the FRATERNITY to 
realize their personal possibilities. Success is con- 
tagious. Achievement inspires still greater achieve- 
ment. Men march faster and farther when they 
march in step. 

In the ceremony of initiation each Matriculate 
promises to "obtain and study diligently the com- 
mentary upon this ritual, entitled: 'The Ideals of the 
I. C. S. FRATERNITY' until I am familiar with its 
contents. " In so doing, imagination, ambition, and 
conscience will be aroused, new incentives to success 
will be generated, the way to accomplish still greater 
results will be found, and life will be animated and 
directed by a clear and determined purpose. Enthu- 
siasm quickly passes into energy and energy needs 
only guidance to become proficiency. 



4 EREFACS 

Particular stress is laid upon the necessity of 
forming the Study Habit, because thousands of 
examples can be cited in which the Study Habit has 
proved to be the firm foundation for great achieve- 
ments. We believe that all men who are worthy 
of success in any direction will instantly adopt 
such a habit when they understand its fundamental 
importance. 

This book should be kept always near at hand. 
When times of discouragement or hours of doubt 
come — as they do come to all men — and the will 
grows slack or weak in command, new motives and 
fresh courage will be created by reading again this 
record of human endeavor and achievement. 



KB 


Contents 


m 



Page 

Preface ' . 3 

Habit 9 

Industry 49 

Concentration 83 

Self-Reliance 119 



Habit 



The difference between men who succeed in life 
and men who fail lies primarily in seeing and seizing 
opportunity. We are living in the age of multi- 
tudinous opportunities: they stare us in the face 
every day, they almost plead with us to put out our 
hands and grasp them, they come laden with the most 
tempting rewards. But each opportunity, as it passes, 
returns no more; another may come, better or worse, 
but not the same one. Yet, however many and of 
whatever value, only he who is trained can see and 
seize them. It depends upon himself and himself 
alone. 



The I. C. S. Fra- 
ternity is 
Educational 



Education fits a man to appre- 
ciate and to make the most of 
his opportunities. There was a 
time when a man's life was not 
his own — it belonged to a feudal baron or to a mili- 
tant state. The individual could cherish no personal 
ambition of developing his own powers, or of making 
his own place in society. That condition has passed 
away forever. A man who does not thrill to his 
opportunities today has the soul of a slave and 
ought to have lived in the land and age of serfs. 
We stand on the threshold of unmeasured possibili- 
ties, a thousand voices are shouting for trained 

9 



10 IDEALS OF THE I, C. S. FRATERITCTY 

ability, numberless doors of promise are swinging 
wide with welcome. Almost every industry is in 
its infancy and is demanding clear brains and skilled 
hands to guide it to its larger development; every 
profession is seeking for men of disciplined mind to 
cope with the ever-enlarging possibilities. 

But it is not simply that there are so many places 
to fill, just so many jobs to do, in the world, and 
that each man is only one out of many striving for 
the coveted position; opportunities are very often 
only possibilities — the possibility of meeting a 
mechanical need, of supplying an industrial defi- 
ciency, even of creating an entirely new field of com- 
merce. Ichabod Washburn was a New England 
blacksmith, working diligently at his anvil. One 
day he learned that no steel wire was being made in 
-America; Great Britain had a monopoly of the trade. 
He determined to make the best wire that could be 
made and win the market. The new departure 
involved study and experiment, but he persisted 
until he drew nearly all the fine wire used in America. 
John D. Rockefeller, when every one was rushing 
to buy oil lands, saw that the oil could be immeasur- 
ably improved in quality and value by being properly 
refined. He took up the question from a scientific 
standpoint, fitted up a laboratory, studied chemistry, 
carried on experiments day and night, until he was 
able to triple the value of every gallon of crude oil 
he could get. Eli Whitney saw the piles of Southern 
cotton being treated by hand, and realized that if a 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 11 

machine for cleaning the green cotton-seed could be 
devised it would do the work of a hundred men and 
make the Southern States prosperous. He set to 
work with a will, overcame all obstacles, and invented 
the cotton-gin. Ezra Cornell saw that telegraphy 
could be only an expensive luxury if single wires had 
to be insulated by a sheathing and laid in trenches 
underground; so he set up poles, insulated the wires 
with bottles, and made the world his debtor. Elias 
Howe determined to build a mechanical sewing 
machine after witnessing and being convinced of the 
slowness of hand labor. Bessemer invented his famous 
steel process because he believed that steel would 
take the place of iron and wood if it could be made 
cheaply, quickly, and in sufficient quantity. McCor- 
mick built his reaper and harvester when he had 
estimated that the population of America was 
increasing so rapidly that it would soon be impossi- 
ble to feed the many millions if grain had to be 
mowed and bound by hand. 

Wherever there is a possibility of cheapening pro- 
duction by new methods, of producing two articles 
where only one is now available, of quickening 
transportation, of simplifying processes, of adapting 
natural forces to mechanical ends, of saving time or 
strength to the worker — there is an opportunity. 
Scattered all over the earth — latent in the moving 
air, dormant in the upturned soil, pulsing in every 
flowing stream, are fabrics and forces which say, 
"We are yours, if you will use us." Every day 



12 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

hundreds of them are seen and seized by men who 
are educated to appreciate their value. They belong 
to no one by inheritance or monopoly; the most 
shrewd or skilful man cannot get a 4 corner on gravi- 
tation, or electricity, or chemical action, or mechan- 
ical force. These things are the servants of any one 
who will understand and utilize them. When a new 
invention or discovery is made known to the world 
there are thousands who say, "Of course, how simple; 
I could have done that if I had only thought." 



" If I had only thought i" That 
Education: the . ,1 , £ £ -i 

^ . - . is the open secret ot failure. 

Power to Achieve r 

Thought is observation, reflection, 

conclusion. To teach men to think quickly, cor- 
rectly, and consecutively, is the mission of education. 
The man who puts no thought into his work is only 
a mechanical device for carrying out some other 
man's thinking; the difference between the human 
machine and the metal machine being that the one 
feels and the other does not. 

But education is not the mere process of gathering 
knowledge; a man may be taught a great many 
things and yet be uneducated. The brain can be 
stuffed just as the stomach, but if the mind-food or 
the body -food is not digested, it is wasted. Edu- 
cation when properly understood is the development 
of our powers, so directing and strengthening and 
disciplining them that they can achieve the ends for 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 13 

which they were created. Life's opportunities are 
entirely missed and its possibilities unrealized by the 
man who has neglected the training of his abilities — 
he can neither see nor seize them. This view of 
education places its benefits within the reach of all. 
It is a process which may be carried out by any one 
who is determined and patient. Too many men 
who received but little schooling in their youth, 
think that they are out of the race for success. "If 
I had only been to college!" they say, with a dis- 
couraged tone, as if resigned to perpetual failure. 
There is no doubt that a college or university training 
is a very great advantage in the struggle for achieve- 
ment. It gives the man a good start, places him at 
an advantage in the beginning of his career, furnishes 
him the immediate use of disciplined faculties; he 
has been trained to observe, to reason, to decide, to 
get along with fewer doubtful experiments than his 
competitors. But it is folly to believe that a man 
is out of the race, or permanently disqualified for 
achievement, because circumstances have not per- 
mitted a college education. Benjamin Franklin 
and Abraham Lincoln did not go to college; James 
Watt, George Stephenson, Humphrey Davy, and 
Richard Arkwright — the four great Englishmen to 
whom civilization owes so much — did not attend 
college; Robert Fulton, Elias Howe, John Ericcson, 
Ezra Cornell, Peter Cooper, Cyrus W. Field, and 
Thomas Edison are among the famous inventors 
who never went to college; Commodore Vanderbilt, 



14 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

A. T. Stewart, Johns Hopkins, Marshall Field, 
Philip D. Armour, and John Wanamaker are examples 
of successful merchants who missed the advantages 
of college; Jay Gould, Russell Sage, Henry Clews, 
Charles Broadway Rouss, John D. Rockefeller, 
Andrew Carnegie, Leland Stanford, Charles M. 
Schwab, and J.J. Hill are a few of the giants of finance 
who started life without the training of a college. 
Yet to speak of any one of these men as uneducated 
would be unfair and untrue. They were educated 
because their powers were wisely directed and well 
developed. 

In almost every instance such 
Education, Through men early cultivated the Study 
the Habits of Rabit George Stephenson, the 

Industry, Concen- . - ,, f - 

. .. A inventor of the steam locomotive 

tration, ana 

Self-Reliance an( i the Father of railroads, at 

eighteen years of age could neither 
read nor write. He was working as fireman and 
man of odd jobs in a coal mine. Suddenly he real- 
ized that his life would be one of coarse manual toil 
at the lowest wages unless he could obtain an edu- 
cation. With great resolution he set himself to 
remedy the consequences of early neglect. At 
nineteen he could read fluently and sign his name. 
At twenty he had learned to write with ease and had 
mastered elementary arithmetic. At twenty-one he 
had grasped the first principles of dynamics and 
mechanics. Every hour given to study was snatched 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 15 

from sleep after working twelve hours a day in the 
mine. No sooner was a law understood than it was 
applied and tested. The value of the new knowl- 
edge was instantly demonstrated by experiments, 
and the certainty thus gained was made the reliable 
foundation for further learning. At the end of five 
years from the time he began to study, Stephenson 
built the first-known gravity road, and at the end of 
fifteen years he had the first practical locomotive 
running on rails. If a man once gains this STUDY 
HABIT, the deficiencies of early life may be made up, 
the limitations which result from a lack of academic 
advantages may be overcome, and the difficulties 
which daunt and defeat the untrained worker can 
surely be mastered. 

We may assume that the man who has been 
deprived of a college course, and who realizes the 
seriousness of his loss, is willing to spend his time 
only upon such subjects as are essential to success in 
the line he has chosen for his abilities. Such a 
decision would cut out of his studies at least one-half 
of the subjects usually taken in college. He will 
spend no time upon general literature, or ancient 
languages, or declamations and essays — at least, 
until he has thoroughly mastered the branches in 
which he is practically interested; likewise, many 
hours devoted to athletics, clubs, and general society, 
by college men, will be saved. If, then, only one hour 
a day is given to study, and no exceptions are allowed 
v in the habit, in less than ten years a man of average 



16 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

intelligence can certainly get everything essential to 
industrial or mechanical success which a college 
course would have provided. That is, he can master 
the scientific bases and bearings of every branch of 
the particular subject in which he is interested. He 
will also have some advantages which the apparently 
more favored student cannot boast : he will appreciate 
from experience and test by application every item 
of knowledge as he secures it. 

The possibilities of systematic reading, if the books 
are well chosen, are almost unlimited. An ordinary 
man can easily read and digest an average of ten 
pages a day, even of what is called heavy literature, 
if he will set aside one hour scrupulously for that 
purpose. The ordinary book contains about three 
hundred pages, and he would thus grasp the contents 
-of twelve books per year. Almost any branch of 
knowledge may be completely mastered in five years 
if such a habit is persisted in. Sixty books, or their 
equivalent in pages, if carefully selected and thought- 
fully read, will undoubtedly give a man expert 
knowledge of the subject upon which they treat. 
When we remember the number of days in each year 
when many more than one hour could be given to 
reading, we realize how vast must be the gains of 
such persistent effort. Too often we think and 
speak of "educational institutions" as if they were the 
only means of education. Education is the product of 
HABIT rather than of institutions, for a man may 
live within the best educational institution for a 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 17 

lifetime and unless he has cultivated the STUDY 
HABIT, he will not profit by his advantages. On 
the other hand, if he develops the STUDY HABIT 
as did Franklin, Lincoln, Cyrus W. Field, Peter 
Cooper, and Andrew Carnegie, he may attain power, 
wealth, fame, or any other object within the reach 
of man, and make humanity his debtor. 



_ . _ . From the foregoing it will be 

The Study Habit: ,, ,- .l,^^ TTAnT „ 

Its Development Seen that the STUDY HABIT 

may be considered the beginning of 

character building ; it forms a sound foundation for all 
future achievements. The two most striking features 
of the growth of any HABIT, whether good or bad — 
regularity and repetition — point the way to the man 
who determines to form the STUDY HABIT. We 
venture to make a few practical suggestions, such as 
have been tried successfully by thousands of men 
who now hold envied positions in the world. They 
may act as guide-posts to the man who desires 
earnestly to make his life a success and yet does not 
know the way. 

I. Launch yourself upon the task with as much 
impetus as you can command. In doing so bring all 
of your nature into play — mind, imagination, heart, 
and conscience. Make a solemn vow to yourself that 
you will do it ; place yourself upon your honor to keep 
that pledge; write your determination upon a piece 
of paper and sign it as a binding bond, and if tempted 



18 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATER NITY 

to falter read the obligation and remind yourself that 
your manhood is at stake. 

II. Decide upon the course of study you wish to 
pursue. This should be done with the utmost care 
after having estimated your powers to determine 
along what line you are likely to reach the best 
results. Usually the thing to which we turn naturally 
is the one we will be able to do best. 

III. Obtain the very best textbook available on 
the subject selected. There are three kinds of text- 
books : the first are written for professors and advanced 
students, in which all elementary knowledge is taken 
for granted ; the second are written for students in 
schools and colleges, on the assumption that the 
teacher will conduct the classwork and explain the 
difficulties as they arise; the third are planned and 
written for home study; they are adapted to the stu- 
dent who is without the aid of a personal instructor; 
they explain each difficulty in clear and simple lan- 
guage; they take no previous knowledge for granted, 
leading the student from the elementary to the ad- 
vanced by regular and easy stages; they are arranged 
in short lessons to fit the needs of the student who 
can give only a little time each day to study. It is 
this last-named type of textbook you should obtain. 

IV. Set aside a definite time for study, and keep 
your books and papers always in one place; in this 
way you will waste no time in setting to work and 
you will find it more difficult to excuse yourself for 
not doing the required amount of study. 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 19 

V. Never allow an exception to your rule. Let 
your friends know your study hour and hold it as 
sacred. Put your conscience before the door as 
sentry and regard any theft of your time as seriously 
as you would regard a theft of your money. In point 
of fact, it amounts to the same thing. To make this 
easier you can set apart another time for outside 
engagements or pleasures — say one evening a week. 
When you have made such an arrangement, stick to 
it as if the destiny of an empire depends upon your 
fidelity. 

VI. If you study at night, allow a few minutes 
before going to work the next morning for review. 
You will make some brief notes for this purpose. 
Such a plan will fix the subject firmly in the mind 
and give you something definite to think about 
during the spare moments of the day. It is not 
difficult to rise one-quarter — or one-half hour earlier; 
if you persist in it for a week the HABIT will be 
acquired. 

VII. Whatever you gain from your textbooks 
put to a practical test as quickly and as often as pos- 
sible. In this way you will also form the HABIT of 
passing readily from knowing to doing; and, becom- 
ing convinced of the value of knowledge, you will be 
eager to gather more. 

VIII. By way of encouragement, you must remem- 
ber that it is only the first steps in the formation of a 
HABIT that are difficult. To study will be more 
tedious the first week than the second, and the 



20 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

second more irksome than the third; but the regular 
repetition will soon make the effort normal, and it 
will grow to be a delight to turn the attention to 
serious mental work. 

In order to avoid unnecessary difficulties, the 
following hints deserve attention : 

There are certain physical conditions which make 
study irksome and almost impossible. Students 
sometimes find themselves incapable of close atten- 
tion to a printed page or a mechanical drawing — the 
effort brings weariness, headache, nervousness. They 
make the error of believing themselves unfitted for 
mental work. The fault does not lie in their mental 
powers at all — it is generally physical. 

If you suffer from such feelings, have your eyes 
examined by the most skilful eye specialist you can 
reach. A large percentage of men today have defect- 
ive sight; their ordinary work does not reveal the 
fact, but as soon as they begin to study under arti- 
ficial light they are aware of a handicap. If it is 
necessary to wear glasses, do not purchase them at 
the nearest store; have them made under a doctor's 
orders and according to his specifications. 

Always keep the air fresh in the room where you 
study; open a window whenever possible, if but an 
inch. Air affects not only the lungs but the brain. 

In using the evening for study, observe two or three 
simple rules: 

Do not eat heartily at supper. Stop after eating 
a reasonable amount and before you are conscious 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 21 



of a feeling of fulness. Then, after your studies are 
finished, enough nourishment may be taken, if it is 
felt necessary, to keep the stomach active during the 
early hours of sleep. 

Avoid sitting so near to a lamp that the heat is felt 
upon your head. If drowsiness threatens to put a 
stop to the work, a part of the study should be done 
standing. The change of position will insure a redis- 
tribution of the blood. Five minutes of physical 
exercise will effect the same result to a larger degree, 
and study may be resumed with comparative ease. 



The STUDY HABIT, apart from 
Power Resides in {t& value ag an apprenticeship for 

Character «. • , ' , • 

effective work, has perhaps its 

highest worth as a producer of character. The value 
of character is so obvious that it scarcely needs 
enforcing. " Consider the importance of a good 
character to your success in the world," writes 
Hawes. "If a young man completes the time of his 
apprenticeship or clerkship with good principles and 
a fair character, he is made for life. His reputation 
is better to him than the richest capital. It makes 
friends, it creates funds, it draws around him 
patronage and support, and opens for him a sure 
and easy way to wealth, to honor, to happiness." 
Horace Greeley once said, "Fame is a vapor, 
popularity an accident, riches take wings, those 
who cheer today may curse tomorrow; only one 



22 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

thing endures — character." "My road," said Can- 
ning, "must be through character to power; I will try 
no other course, and I am sanguine enough to believe 
that this course, though not perhaps the quickest, is 
the surest." President Roosevelt has summed it up 
in one unmistakable sentence: "The chief factor in 
any man's success or failure must be his own char- 
acter." 

Character is the essential self. Strip a man of all 
titles, honors, clothes, wealth, rank, or whatever is arti- 
ficial, and that which remains is character. Charac- 
ter is what the man is, nothing less and nothing more. 
Many things of an external nature may aid a man in 
reaching success in spite of disadvantages and obsta- 
cles. But character is power — the power a man gath- 
ers or generates in his own personality. Walter 
Scott, through his connection with an unreliable 
business house, had his fortune suddenly swept away.' 
It was known that he possessed vast ability and that 
by tireless industry he might recover his lost position. 
His creditors met to discuss the problem. Their 
chances of saving anything from the wreck were very 
slight. A few of them were for pressing Sir Walter 
into bankruptcy and snatching what they could of 
his personal property. But those who knew the 
great Scotchman best felt that his chief asset lay in 
his character. " Give him a chance," they said, " and 
Sir Walter will find a way. to meet his obligations." 
They gave him the chance solely on account of his 
character. With character as a foundation Scott 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 23 

retrieved his rained fortune, enriched the world with 
a wealth of noble literature, and died amid the love 
and homage of his fellows. Cyrus W. Field, in laying 
the Atlantic cable, found himself involved in diffi- 
culties so vast and critical that for years the project 
hung in the balance and almost every one predicted 
defeat. The task took thirteen years, Field's per- 
sonal fortune was sunk in the enterprise, one by one 
his friends and staunchest supporters were removed 
by death, the Civil War broke out and England and 
America were not upon the best of terms, money 
became scarce and almost impossible to obtain; yet, 
in spite of all, Field succeeded. His character was 
so esteemed that even when men had the gravest 
doubts of the success of his plans, they nevertheless 
supported them because they believed in the man. 
What governmental diplomacy could not do — win 
the confidence of the British nation — Field did by 
sheer strength of character. It may be said, 
therefore, that the character of one man linked the 
two hemispheres and began a new era in 
history. Ulysses S. Grant, the hero of a hundred 
battles, the President of the United States, the idol 
of the nation, found himself bankrupt and in broken 
health at the age when nothing but honor and ease 
should have been his lot. But he had one asset 
— character! The whole world believed in him and 
cheered him with reverence and trust as he struggled 
in penury and pain to retrieve his position. Every- 
where in life character is the best collateral, the 



24 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

foundation of credit, and the guarantee of achieve- 
ment. 

If, then, the testimony of famous 
arac er . e men an( j ^ e observations of ex- 

Product of Habit 

penence are correct m placing 

character as the foremost feature in conquering suc- 
cess, we ought to know how character is produced. 
It is certainly not born with us; it would be foolish 
to speak of a babe as possessing character. Char- 
acter is simply the sum of our habits, the total of 
our mental, moral, and physical activities. Every- 
thing we feel or think or do builds something into 
our system. Take a man at any moment of his 
life and examine him and you will find that he is 
the truthful history of his entire past — not a thought 
or a deed has been lost. If you could separate him 
into his component parts, as we separate the ele- 
ments of a chemical compound, you would be sur- 
prised to see that not even the tiniest activity of all 
his years has been missed or forgotten. 



In this sense man is his own 

Man: His Own crea tor. We start life with very 

Creator 

little — probably with not more 

than a will and a capacity. The first conscious acts 
of life are the formation of habits; children do things 
because they like to do them or because they are 
compelled to do them. They do not know at the 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 25 

time that they are building up the Self which they 
must carry all through life. "Life," says Amiel, "is 
but a tissue of habits." Professor James, of Harvard 
University, states this clearly in his important book 
"Psychology": "We are spinning our own fates, 
good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest 
stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its scar. The 
drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson's play, excuses 
himself for every fresh dereliction by saying, 'I won't 
count this time!' Well! he may not count it, and 
a kind heaven may not count it; but it is being 
counted none the less. Down among his nerve cells 
and fibers the molecules are counting it, registering 
and storing it up to be used against him when the 
next temptation comes. Nothing we ever do is, in 
strict scientific literalness, wiped out. Of course, 
this has its good side as well as its bad one. As we 
become permanent drunkards by so many separate 
drinks, so we become saints in the moral, and author- 
ities and experts in the practical and scientific 
spheres, by so many separate acts and hours of work. 
Let no youth have any anxiety about the upshot of 
his education, whatever the line of it may be. If he 
keep faithfully busy each hour of the working day, 
he may safely leave the final result to itself. He can 
certainly count upon waking up some fine morning to 
find himself one of the competent ones of his genera- 
tion, in whatever pursuit he may have singled out." 
This law of HABIT determines whether a man 
shall be a failure or a success in life. A boy in school 



26 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

shirks the hard lessons because they are hard; that 
very act is the beginning of defeat. Perhaps later, he 
chooses the course he wishes to take in the high school 
or college on the principle that the one with the least 
number of difficult subjects will suit him best, for- 
getful that the evasion of hard tasks is fastening 
the FAILURE-HABIT firmly upon him. When he 
reaches the point of selecting a line of work, or a 
profession, he instinctively takes the one containing 
the fewest difficulties or irksome hours, and by that 
time he is courting failure earnestly. A little later 
he dodges the obstacles and evades the hard, knotty 
problems of his daily occupation, and may be said to 
be married to failure for life. He masters no branch 
of his business, and when the time of stress and strain 
comes he will be found wanting. He has cultivated 
the FAILURE-HABIT for years and he reaps what 
he sowed. Another boy determines that he will not 
be beaten by a difficult lesson. He wins his first tri- 
umph. The next obstacle is harder, but he says, 
" I did the other, why not this?" and with the momen- 
tum of his first victory as an initial impulse he wins 
his second. By the time he enters business the 
momentum of successively won battles has become 
a great force; he goes at difficulties, obstacles, prob- 
lems, just as a hunting-horse takes fences — instinc- 
tively, unhestitatingly. He has developed the SUC- 
CESS-HABIT; when the crucial, testing time arrives 
he will be ready for it and will surely win because he 
does not know how to fail. John B. Herreshoff, the 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 27 

designer of the invincible yachts which have held 
the coveted " Challenge Cup" on the American side of 
the Atlantic, has been blind from birth. While still 
a boy he determined not to let the terrible affliction 
cheat him out of a successful life, he would not allow 
it even to handicap him. The business he chose 
seems to be absolutely impossible to one without 
sight. At the early age of eleven he was learning 
the lines of a boat by the sense of touch. Soon after- 
wards he began to make models. He quickly learned 
to select material by running his hand over it, and a 
defective beam or plank never escaped detection. 
Beginning in a modest way, he made row boats and 
sailing craft of small and simple pattern. He laid 
it down as a rule never to give in to a difficulty, 
but to think and work until it was overcome. 
Every time one of his fast and graceful yachts or 
schooners outsails its rival, a new illustration is 
furnished of how the HABIT of conquering obstacles 
will certainly carry a man to success. The swiftest 
power boats of the American and British governments 
were also designed and built by the blind Herreshoff , 
for he is one of the most original and daring of modern 
inventors. 

It is a feature of human nature 
a i .^ epeaing ^ w { s h to do twice what it has 
a Previous Action 

already done once. This tendency 

to repetition is nothing but HABIT. Seeing that 
the second attempt is usually easier than the first, we 



2 8 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

understand how powerful becomes the liability to 
constant repetition, until the liability passes into 
certainty. In this way movements of the mind or 
body become instinctive and are performed without 
effort. The achievements resulting from the opera- 
tion of this law, when the habits are good, form the 
longest chapter of human progress. 

The greatest speech of modern times was undoubt- 
edly Daniel Webster's reply to Hayne. It may have 
appeared to be an extemporaneous effort when 
delivered — a sudden outburst of inspired genius; 
yet it was really the reverse, the product of slowly 
formed and carefully developed HABIT. At eight 
years of age Webster bought in a country store a 
cotton handkerchief which had the Constitution of 
the United States printed upon it. That night, 
before the blazing fire on the hearth, he began to 
learn it, and in a short time had committed every 
sentence to memory. From that hour he was a 
student and a collector of everything relating to the 
American Constitution. He steeped his mind in the 
history of those principles which underlie constitu- 
tional government and liberty; he made constant 
notes upon his most important conclusions. When 
Hayne made his attack upon New England, Webster 
was ready to reply. He had made a profound and 
prolonged study of the very questions Hayne raised; 
in his desk he had his notes all carefully arranged and 
filed; the HABIT of preparation made him invincible. 
"I was already posted/' Webster said later, "and had 



IDEALS OF T HE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 29 

only to take down my notes and refresh my memory. 
In other words, if he had to make a speech to fit my 
notes, he could not have hit it better.' ' 

No one can estimate the immense wealth and happi- 
ness brought to the cotton-growing states of the 
South and to the whole world by Eli Whitney's 
invention of the cotton gin. But that far-reaching 
invention was the result of a HABIT contracted long 
years before. As soon as he could handle a tool he 
tried to make something. One Sunday, when his 
father was at church, Eli took his watch, which had 
been left at home, piece from piece, and had it together 
again and running before the father returned. The 
youngster made knives for the family table, con- 
structed violins, and when he wanted to do a piece 
of work for which he had no tools, he calmly made the 
tools first. Whenever an emergency arose in which 
something was demanded which was not in exist- 
ence, young Whitney undertook to make one. When 
in Georgia, some years later, and the need of a machine 
to clean cotton in large quantities became apparent, 
Whitney's HABIT asserted itself and he said, "I will 
make one." How well he succeeded the whole 
world knows. 

It was the HABIT of careful observation acquired 
early in life that enabled Fahrenheit to conceive and 
perfect the thermometer with the register of degrees 
of heat and cold which still bears his name. 

Thomas A. Edison owes many of his discoveries to 
HABIT. His habit of carefully testing the quality 



30 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

of everything he touched led to the discovery of the 
carbon filament. For months Edison had been 
thinking and experimenting to obtain what he wanted. 
One day he scraped some soot from a blackened lamp 
chimney and true to his investigating habit began to 
test its properties and forecast its possibilities." It 
turned out to be the very substance for which he had 
been looking so long. Again, the habit of asking 
" Why?" when anything unusual or unexpected came 
up in his work, led to the invention of the phono- 
graph. "I was singing to the mouthpiece of a tele- 
phone," says Mr. Edison, "when the vibration of the 
voice sent the fine steel point into my finger. That 
set me thinking. If I could record the actions of the 
point and send the point over the same surface after- 
wards, I saw no reason why the thing would not 
talk. I tried the experiment first on a slip of tele- 
graph paper and found that the point made an 
alphabet. I shouted the words, 'Hello! Hello F 
into the mouthpiece, ran the paper back over the 
steel point, and heard a faint, 'Hello! Hello!' in 
return. I there and then determined to make a 
machine that would work accurately, and gave my 
assistants instructions, informing them of my dis- 
covery. They laughed at me. But I made them 
set to. That's the whole story. The phonograph, 
or sound recorder, is the result of the pricking of a 
needle." 

People who take only superficial views of life may 
call these wonderful discoveries accidental, a mere 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 31 

matter of luck, but they were nothing less than the 
rewards of HABIT. 

It was the HABIT of systematic preparation for 
emergencies, of methodical arrangement of every- 
thing with a view to a possible crisis, that made Vori 
Moltke the perfect master of the situation when the 
Franco-Prussian war broke out. The war was 
declared at midnight, after Von Moltke had gone to 
bed. An official awakened him to communicate the 
news. The great general did not even get up. He 
said quietly, "Go to pigeonhole No. — in my safe, 

take the paper numbered from it, and telegraph 

as there directed to the different troops of the 
Empire.' ' He then turned over and went to sleep, 
awakening the next morning at his accustomed hour. 
Every one else in Berlin was excited and rushing 
about with feverish haste, but Von Moltke took his 
morning walk as usual. A friend met him and said, 
" General, you seem to be taking it very easy. Aren't 
you afraid of the situation ? I should think you would 
be very busy." "Ah," replied Von Moltke, "all my 
work for the time being has already been performed, 
and everything that can be done now has been done." 



Astonishing results can be 
Habit: Makes i- 1 j i r. *.i_ j- 1 

Efj t E ' accomplished by such methodical 

habits. Emile Littre, the author 
of the standard French dictionary, did not begin his 
great task until forty-five years of age, and worked 



32 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

at it incessantly for the next thirty years. The mere 
labor of setting the type took thirteen years. Littre 
himself has told us how he lived and worked by rule 
or HABIT, and admits that the life was not at all 
dreary; in fact, it was often lighted up with unex- 
pected pleasures, besides the happy consciousness of 
daily accomplishment. He says: 

"My rule of life included the twenty-four hours of 
the day and night, so as to bestow the least possible 
amount of time on the current calls of existence. I 
rose at eight; very late, you will say, for so busy a 
man. Wait an instant. While they put my bed- 
room in order, which was also my study, I went 
downstairs with some work in hand. It was thus, 
for example, that I composed the preface of the 
dictionary. I had learned from Chancellor d' 
Agnesseau the value of unoccupied minutes. At 
nine I set to work to correct proofs until the hour of 
our midday meal. At one I resumed work, and 
wrote my papers for the 'Journal des Savants,' to 
which I was from 1855 a regular contributor. From 
three to six I went on with the dictionary. At six, 
punctually, we dined, which took about an hour. 
They say it is unwholesome to work directly after 
dinner, but I have never found it so. It is so much 
time won from the exigencies of the body. Starting 
again at seven in the evening, I stuck to the diction- 
ary. My first stage took me to midnight, when my 
wife and daughter (who were my assistants) retired. 
I then worked on till three in the morning, by which 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNI TY 33 

time my daily task was usually completed. If it 
was not, I worked on later; and, more than once, in 
the long days of summer, I have put out my lamp 
and continued to work by the light of the coming 
dawn. However, at three in the morning I generally 
laid down my pen and put my papers in order for 
the following day — that day which had already 
begun. HABIT and regularity had extinguished all 
excitement in my work. I fell asleep as easily as a 
man of leisure does, and woke at eight, as men of 
leisure do. But these vigils were not without their 
charm. A nightingale had built her nest in a row 
of limes that crosses the garden, and she filled the 
silence of the night and of the country with her 
limpid and tuneful notes.' ' 



Professor William James is an 
Science and Phi- authority able to speak upon 
losophy Agree that HABIT both from a scientific and 

^ . T a philosophical standpoint. He 

Deepest Law and ^ r __ ._il_ . 

Strongest Force contends that HABIT has a 

in Life physical basis; that "an acquired 

HABIT is nothing but a new 
pathway of discharge formed in the brain, by which 
certain incoming currents ever after tend to escape." 
The brain is plastic and easily receives impressions. 
Our nerves, like fine wires, carry impressions or sensa- 
tions to the brain, and these must find a way out. It 
may be illustrated thus: Physical exertion on a 



34 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

warm day sends a sensation, which we call " fatigue," 
to the brain. Once there it must get out by some 
action which is a response to the message. Usually 
we sit, or lie down, if possible. But upon this day 
in question we are on a crowded street and such 
an act is not convenient. Nearby is a saloon. We 
enter and take a drink of liquor as a stimulant. 
That is the reply which. we make to the message 
signaled along the nerves to the brain; that is, 
the current of sensation passes out of the brain that 
way, and, as it passes, it makes a slight path in the 
soft tissues of the brain matter. The next day, if we 
feel fatigue, the current which the nerves again carry 
to the brain will find that slight path and pass along 
it easily. We shall drink again and with less hesita- 
tion than we did the day before. If that continues 
several days, the slight path will be worn into a 
groove, and every time a sensation of fatigue is sent 
to the brain we shall fly to liquor without any effort — 
instinctively, involuntarily. 

To use a different illustration — the formation of 
HABIT, as a physical grooving of the brain, is just 
like the history of Broadway, New York. When 
the city was only a cluster of houses at the point 
of Manhattan Island, which we now call the Bat- 
tery, the worthy citizens brought their cows in 
to be milked along a path which grew broader 
every day, because, being in the center of the 
settlement, the people on both sides of it drove 
their cattle that way. As the village extended into 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 35 

the country the houses were built upon either side 
of the cow path, which grew still broader each year 
as more cows went to and from pasture, until at 
length it became a well-marked road. Traffic passed 
along it naturally — simply because it was well 
marked and convenient — until it has become the 
longest and busiest thoroughfare in the world. Thus 
we never give expression to a thought or feeling 
several times in the same way without making a well- 
marked track along which the subsequent thoughts 
and feelings of the same kind will pass easily and 
without conscious effort. 

" 'HABIT is second nature! HABIT is ten times 
nature!' the Duke of Wellington is said to have 
exclaimed; and the degree to which this is true no 
one probably can appreciate as well as one who is 
a veteran soldier himself. The daily drill and the 
years of discipline end by fashioning a man com- 
pletely over again, as to most of the possibilities of 
his conduct/ ' 

" There is a story," says Professor Huxley, "which 
is credible enough, though it may not be true, of a 
practical joker who, seeing a discharged veteran carry- 
ing home his dinner, suddenly called out, 'Attention!' 
whereupon the man instantly brought his hands 
down, and lost his mutton and potatoes in the gut- 
ter. The drill had been thorough and its effects had 
become embodied in the man's nervous structure." 

This shows how serious a matter HABIT is, how 
it holds the secret of success or failure. "Sow an act 



36 IDEALS OF T HE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

and you reap a HABIT; sow a HABIT and you reap 
a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny." 
D. O. Mills, the well-known financier of New York, 
was asked what he considered the foundation of 
financial success. He replied, " Saving the first 
one hundred dollars." Then he added, " It is not the 
money but the HABIT that counts." In the hoard- 
ing of that nest egg, many important things will be 
involved — acts which grow into habits as the little 
pile slowly increases — thrift, self-denial, good judg- 
ment, patience, and carefulness. Each of these will 
wear the groove in the brain a little deeper as each 
separate dollar is jealously set aside and guarded. 
After that point is reached it will be as easy to save 
five hundred as it was the one hundred. "It is the 
HABIT that counts!" 



If we had to dress today for 
Habit Leads to the first time ^ Rfe ^ wouM fee 

Unconscious 

Action a long and difficult undertaking. 

We should have to study the 

meaning and probable place of each garment. To 

put the studs in the shirt, to discover what to do 

with the unattached cuffs, to decide which was the 

back and which the front of each article, would 

present a succession of serious problems. To adjust 

the necktie alone would involve a large amount of 

mental and physical effort. Yet every day we dress 

and undress without giving the process a single 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 37 

thought. HABIT has made it easy and usually we 
perform the series of separate acts unconsciously 
and while thinking of an entirely different subject. 
Sir James Paget has made an estimate that an 
expert pianist can strike twenty-four notes in a second. 
Each note necessitates the passing of a nerve current 
from the eye to the brain and from the brain to the 
fingers. Each note requires three movements of a 
finger, the bending down and raising up, and at least 
one lateral, making no less than seventy-two motions 
in a second, not to mention the movements of the 
wrist and elbow and shoulder, and each requires the 
control of the will to regulate the speed, force, and 
direction. Paderewski can do it easily for an hour 
without pause. But the only way in which the 
performance is possible is by the unconscious action 
which nothing but HABIT can give. HABIT does 
away with the difficult task of making up the mind 
on every movement or action which must be per- 
formed in life. If a man has the HABIT of doing 
honest work, he does not have to discuss the ques- 
tion every five minutes of how well a thing shall be 
done ; there is only one way to do it and he cannot 
do it any other. If the STUDY HABIT has been 
cultivated the student does not have to fight every 
night to decide whether he will sit down to his books, 
or spend the evening on the street, or at some place 
of amusement ; he goes to his studies almost uncon- 
sciously, as if it were the only course open. When a 
man has the spendthrift HABIT he can only decide 



38 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

to deposit money in the bank after a serious wrestle 
with himself, and then he will probably draw it out 
the next day; but if he persists in depositing, it will 
require a still greater effort to persuade him to 
break his HABIT of thrift and waste his savings. 



Quite a conspicuous number 
The First Steps in of the world > s most ill ust rious 
Forming a Habit 1 1 - . J . . , 

Are Difficult scholars were dunces in their boy- 

hood. They had to whip them- 
selves severely before the HABIT of reading or 
study was formed. The list is too long to give, but 
it includes such names as Newton, the discoverer 
of gravitation; Shakespeare, the dramatist; Edmund 
Burke, the orator; Patrick Henry, the patriot; the 
Duke of Wellington, Napoleon's conqueror; Stonewall 
Jackson, the Confederate leader; John Wesley, the 
apostle and founder of Methodism; Henry Ward 
Beecher, the prince of preachers; Ulysses S. Grant, 
President of the United States; Sir Walter Scott, 
the novelist; Linnaeus, the botanist; and Byron, the 
poet. The early efforts of a dull mind are extremely 
painful and nothing short of an heroic and inflexible 
will can ever spur such an one to the initial steps. 
But when the HABIT of study is once gained by 
such minds, they usually make the soundest prog- 
ress and master the subject or business with greater 
thoroughness than the men of more brilliant intellect. 
If it could be realized that usually it is only the first 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 39 

steps in the formation of good habits that are diffi- 
cult, and that the later ones are easy, tending to 
unconscious action, many more would set themselves 
to the development of such HABITS as INDUSTRY, 
CONCENTRATION, and SELF-RELIANCE. 



We can rely upon the fidelity 

£ G r/, H A^ iUSa of a good HABIT with a degree 
Faithful Ally & . & 

of absolute certainty such as we 
cannot place in anything else. It is inseparably our 
own, unshared by others and independent of the 
conduct of those who surround us. Our money may 
melt away, our friends may desert us in extremity, 
our health may suddenly fail, but we may rest assured 
that the habits we have woven into the texture of 
our being will remain with us. If we have drilled 
ourselves to punctuality, thoroughness, temperance, 
purity, and patience; if we have built into the 
system the HABITS of INDUSTRY, CONCEN- 
TRATION, and SELF-RELIANCE, we can count 
upon the stability of such acquisitions as we do 
upon the rising of the sun. They will help to remove 
all obstacles that impede our path and impel us 
along the line of progress with the accumulated 
momentum of every good thought or deed that 
went to their making. They will steady and encour- 
age us under the reverses and discouragements such 
as men are bound to meet who move forward to a 
high and distant goal. 



40 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

Professor Virchow, of Berlin, says: "How often 
have I found myself in a state of despondency and 
with a feeling of depression. What has saved me 
is the HABIT of work, which has not forsaken me 
even in the days of outward misfortune — the HABIT 
of scientific work." 

Andrew Carnegie pays a remarkable tribute to the 
moral value of studious habits when he says of his 
youthful days: " I was too busy studying to contract 
the habits that make such inroads on the health and 
pockets of young men, and this helped me in many 
ways." 

A HABIT is only the aggregate 
Not More Difficult Q f thoughts or acts along one 

tt i?/ 1 ^ °° line, as we have alreadv seen. 

Habits Irian 

Bad Ones ^ we ma ke a careful analysis 

of our feelings when performing 
the initial acts we shall see that Nature is on the side 
of good habits. The HABIT of early rising is a dif- 
ficult one to develop if started late in life; but almost 
the first time it is attempted it will be manifest 
that the mind is clearer, the nerves steadier, and the 
judgment surer in the early morning than at any 
other time in the day. This shows the attitude 
of Nature toward the question. The HABIT of 
INDUSTRY has a similar indorsement. • Food is 
more easily digested, the functions of the body are 
more regular, the faculties are truer in their exercise, 
and the mind is more contented, in an industrious 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 41 

life than in a lazy one. This is Nature saying, 
"I am on the side of the worker." The triumphs 
of the men of good habits — and the list comprehends 
almost all whom the world delights to honor — are 
proof that they enlisted the forces of the Universe 
in their own behalf. 

On the other hand bad habits are made up of acts 
which had a deterrent in them when performed for 
the first time. It is doubtful whether any drunkard 
enjoyed his very first glass of whisky. The dis- 
honorable worker performed his first dishonest work 
in fear of detection. The spendthrift's initial squan- 
dering aroused a protest from the instinct of acquisi- 
tion which seems to be born with every creature. 
The first cigar usually disturbs the stomach to the 
point of rebellion. The impatience an unpunctual 
man always feels against another who is late for an 
appointment proves that the honor of punctuality 
was a part of our original stock in trade. The 
ingrained instinct of self-preservation warns men 
against the early steps of a course that may jeopardize 
all they hold most dear. 



Good habits are the wings that 
Beware of Slothful, Hft a man tQ success; bad habits 
Useless, or Perm- . . 1 A J _ 1 , . 1 

. „„ tt„ v:**. are the weights that sink a man 

cious Habits & 

to failure. The successful men of 
the business world are so convinced of the value of 
HABIT that although a candidate for advancement 



42 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

is a superior man in many respects, if he has one 
known bad HABIT, his chances are ruined. Where 
one man is thwarted by lack of ability probably 
fifty are balked by slothful, useless, or pernicious 
habits. An office boy was dismissed from a New 
York business-house because of dirty hands ; the boy 
who took his place became a junior partner of the firm 
in seventeen years, and the president in twenty-one 
years. 

Although bad habits are tenacious and powerful, 
they are not omnipotent. Doctor Johnson said, 
"The chains of HABIT are generally too small to be 
felt till they are too strong to be broken/' While 
not discounting the strength of any HABIT, we 
believe that Johnson's statement is false. 

" When I was young, I was with my foster-father on 
board a man-of-war," said Admiral Farragut. " I had 
some qualities that I thought made a man of me. I 
could swear like an old salt, could drink as stiff a 
glass of grog as if I had doubled Cape Horn, and 
could smoke like a locomotive. I was great at cards 
and fond of games in every shape. At the close of 
dinner one day, father turned everybody out of the 
cabin, locked the door, and said: 

" 'David, what do you mean to be?' 

" 'I mean to follow the sea.' 

" 'Follow the sea! Yes, be a poor, miserable, 
drunken sailor before the mast, to be kicked and 
cuffed about the world, and die in some fever hospital 
in a foreign land. No, David, no boy ever trod the 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 43 

quarterdeck with such principles as you have, and 
such habits as you exhibit. You'll have to change 
your whole course of life, if you ever become a man.' 

"My father left me and went on deck. I was 
stunned by the rebuke and overwhelmed with mor- 
tification. 'A poor, miserable, drunken sailor before 
the mast, to be kicked and cuffed about the world, 
and die in some fever hospital ! ' ' That is to be my 
fate,' thought I. 'I'll change my life at once. I'll 
never utter another oath, never drink another drop 
of liquor, and never gamble.' I have kept these three 
vows ever since." 

Of course it is far easier to break senseless, useless, 
or vicious habits in the period of youth than in later 
years, when the grooves in the brain are deeper and 
the chains are heavier upon the will. But it is not 
impossible at any time. A man's reserves of strength 
are such that if he will summon them and direct them 
aright he can free himself from habits that have been 
hampering or cursing him for years. Too soon we 
become victims of the illusion that habits of long 
standing must continue to fetter a man until the end, 
that once a failure always a failure, that Fate has 
condemned him to a life of tyranny under a despot he 
would be glad to overthrow but cannot. 

An elephant is usually tethered by a heavy chain 
wound around one of his hind legs and secured to a 
post or stake. After years of such bondage he settles 
down to the conviction that he cannot get free. When 
this idea is firmly fixed in the mind of the great beast 



44 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

his keeper can tie him with a wisp of straw in place 
of the chain. He still stands there under the impres- 
sion that he cannot break loose, while in reality he 
could end his bondage in a moment. There are 
multitudes of men who are bound by habits which 
they believe to be unbreakable and they have lost all 
hope and given up all effort to be free. Their case is 
not really as bad as they imagine. Experience 
teaches beyond a doubt that men may liberate them- 
selves, that they can make a new start in life, that 
many of the mistakes of the past can be retrieved. 

Two or three rules must be followed in breaking 
up foolish or harmful habits. In the first place, 
there must be a great incentive. This chapter began 
with a review of the opportunities and possibilities 
that are open to men who wish to achieve. It will be 
well to read them until they fire the imagination and 
awaken in the heart and mind a vast ambition. 
Become familiar also with the history of men who 
have won success in their various callings. Listen to 
the voice of Fame praising the victor for his wisdom, 
or power, or goodness; picture as vividly as possible 
the inestimable rewards and prizes won by well- 
directed effort ; think of the thrilling pleasure of find- 
ing yourself rising above the low level of mediocrity 
and taking your place in the ranks of the conspicuous 
successes. Dream, if you like, until the dream awa- 
kens every possible desire within you and stirs to life 
the dormant faculties and latent powers of your 
nature. Believe that you — just as much as any one 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 45 

else — that you were born for great achievements. 
You will then hate and loathe the habits that hamper 
you, and, with a mighty effort, you will launch your 
will against them and win your liberty. 

But even that will be insufficient. You must 
immediately put a good HABIT in the place of the 
one you have cast off, or it will come back and bind 
you again with stronger cables. Find something that 
is well worth the doing and then do it with all your 
might. Do it now. A delay of a day may be fatal. 
Let it occupy all your spare time and your spare 
strength, so that you will have nothing left upon which 
the old tendency can fasten. The evening hours that 
have hitherto been spent unprofitably must be filled 
with an occupation that will carry you forward 
toward the goal of the new ambition. In an incred- 
ibly short time you will find the old HABIT entirely 
supplanted by the new, while the gains of the 
changed program will be already accruing to you. 

Never think you are strong enough to flirt with the 
old temptation. Like Delilah, it will betray you to 
your enemy. Seek companions among those who are 
successfully following the path in which you have 
elected to travel, men who are nerved by the same 
lofty ideals and impelled by similar glowing hopes. 
Choose such an environment as will encourage and 
strengthen the virtues and habits you are trying to 
cultivate. The people or the places that weaken your 
resolution or deflect you from your purpose, shun as 
you would shun a pestilence. 



46 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

And remember the Installation prayer of the Frater- 
nity, wherein the Creator was invoked to teach you the 
nobility of true and upright living, the value of wise 
and inspiring companionships, the necessity of true 
and diligent habits, and to give you the willingness 
and ability to use aright the powers and faculties with 
which you are endowed. If we believe in a Creator at 
all, we believe also, as a sequence, that He must be 
sufficiently interested in our endeavors to aid us in 
achieving the purpose for which we were created and 
which we are fitted to accomplish, and it will be wise 
for us to seek His help and guidance. 

In conclusion, let us neglect no aid or accessory that 
may be of assistance in cultivating such habits as 
will inevitably build up the kind of character necessary 
to a worthy and successful life. 



Industry 



yy 


Industry 


u: 



INDUSTRY is the habit of per- 

Industry: Useful r r , -i .• , i 

t. / x . forming a useful or productive task, 

or Productive fe ^ 

whether mental or manual. Defi- 
nition is quite important when speaking of INDUS- 
TRY, because a wrong idea of the exact meaning of 
the word may result in a ruined life. Merely to be 
occupied in doing something may be very different 
from being industrious. A man can be lazy in such a 
manner that others think him to be industrious: he 
may be fussy, may move about with an air of great 
activity, may use a vast amount of energy, and yet 
accomplish nothing of value to himself or to the 
world. In its real sense, INDUSTRY implies that 
our time and strength and thought are being spent in 
a way that is useful. It differs from play or recreation 
in having for its object something more than personal 
pleasure. For instance, one may fly a kite just for 
his own amusement and use both his mental and 
physical powers in the occupation, yet, though he 
work at it from morning until night, it cannot be 
called INDUSTRY; but Benjamin Franklin spent 
many hours flying a kite in order to demonstrate that 
lightning is electricity, and so added something to the 
progress of the world. He undoubtedly received 
pleasure from the occupation; but it was more than 
an amusement because it had a definite purpose 

49 



50 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

and was a means to an end. It is possible to labor 
very hard with the body and leave the brain almost 
unused; it is also possible to work diligently with 
the mind without moving a muscle. The best and 
most productive forms of INDUSTRY are those in 
which the brain and the body are joined in the effort. 
A definite scale can sometimes be worked out to show 
the increased value of physical effort when the mind 
lends its aid. A favorite illustration is as follows: 
"A blacksmith makes five dollars' worth of iron into 
horseshoes, and gets ten dollars for them. A machin- 
ist makes the same iron into needles and gets sixty- 
eight hundred dollars. A watchmaker takes it and 
makes it into mainsprings, and gets two hundred 
thousand dollars; or into hairsprings, and gets two 
million dollars, sixty times the value of the same 
weight of gold." 

The habit of INDUSTRY implies 
A H^bT" continuous work — steady, persist- 

ent effort. To engage in a task 
for a limited time, however hard one may labor at it, 
only to pass again into a state of voluntary laziness, 
can never constitute an industrious life. Fitful, 
intermittent, and occasional work never enabled a 
man to accomplish any worthy end. It was said of 
the Duke of Wellington that he did his duty as natur- 
ally as a horse eats hay. INDUSTRY means that a 
man works as naturally as a child plays, that it has 
become the normal condition of his living, the first 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 51 

law of life to him. Ruskin says : "If you want knowl- 
edge you must toil for it ; if food you must toil for it ; 
and if pleasure you must toil for it; toil is the law." 



Nature makes few mistakes. 
Indushy: The Man was made for WQrk E 

Natural Expression . , 
of Power faculty, every sense, every nerve, 

and every muscle is planned for a 
definite purpose and fitted for a specific use. The 
physical system is a set of skilful tools, and the will is 
the workman who takes them up and uses them. The 
eyes are for observation, the brain for thought, the 
nerves are the carriers of messages from one part of the 
body to the other, the muscles are the engines of phys- 
ical force, the hands and feet are the machines by 
which the larger part of the work is done. INDUS- 
TRY is the steady running of this entire plant. Take 
any well-known piece of work — for example, that of 
James Watt. Watt observed the power of steam in 
lifting the lid of a teakettle. His brain immediately 
began a series of comparisons and deductions ; it was a 
problem in rule of three : if the steam from a quart of 
water will lift a three-ounce obstacle, how much will 
the steam from a hundred gallons lift ? Then followed 
the question of how to generate and direct such a large 
amount of force. His nerves and muscles began their 
task — the nerves carrying messages from the brain to 
the muscles and back again, and boilers, condensers, 
pistons, valves, wheels, were the result. Every tool 



52 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

that he possessed was put to use during many months 
and years; that is, he did what he was created to do, 
he simply fulfilled the intention of Nature. Sir 
Walter Scott wrote to his son at school expressing 
this same law: "I cannot too much impress upon 
your mind that labor is the condition which God has 
imposed on us in every station in life ; there is nothing 
worth having that can be had without it." James 
Russell Lowell once wrote, "No man is born into the 
world whose work is not born with him ; there is always 
work, and tools to work withal, for those who will." 
And Gladstone states that "The laborer has his legiti- 
mate, his necessary, his honorable and honored place 
in God's creation; but in all God's creation there is 
no place appointed for the idler." So we may con- 
clude that INDUSTRY is the primary law of life; to 
live as Nature intended man to live he must work. 



Nature is very exacting. Our 

Idleness is 

w t * i powers are given to us for use; if 

for any reason they remain unused 
they are taken from us. Non-use is misuse, misuse 
is abuse ; and by a law which knows no exception men 
suffer for such folly. Even at the advanced age of 
eighty -four Gladstone worked and studied ten hours 
a day in order to hold his own; Paganini, the famous 
musician, when at the height of his fame, practiced 
eight hours each day, for, he said, "without it my 
skill will pass from me." 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 53 



Life's great opportunities come suddenly. When 
they arrive their demand is urgent and immediate; 
they allow no time for preparation. Recently a man 
was offered a very lucrative and honorable position. 
It was assumed that he was ready to fill it. He asked 
the Directors if they could give him six months in 
which to prepare for the larger sphere; this was 
impossible, and another filled the place. In speaking 
of it later the disappointed man admitted that it was 
his own fault: he had failed to gather a knowledge of 
just one branch of the work required in the new posi- 
tion. "If," he said, "I had used the time I have 
spent in attending the theater and reading novels 
during the past two years, I would have been ready/ ' 

When the foreman of a shop is promoted to a super- 
intendency or to partnership, the firm cannot wait 
while a man prepares for the vacancy; if there is a 
man in the works whose ability and knowledge are 
ahead of the rest, who has applied himself to placing 
his practical skill upon a scientific basis, who has 
developed his powers of observation and application 
"by careful study, that man will receive the promotion. 

Employes of any rank or grade who do only just 
enough work to hold their present positions, never 
reach higher ones, and in a few years usually sink 
still lower. Each generation is a little better edu- 
cated than the one preceding it, younger men come 
forward who are more alert and vigorous, and by the 
time a worker is fifty he finds himself out of date, 
unless he has studied and labored industriously to 



54 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

master his work in every detail, theoretical as well as 
practical. Toward middle life the brain becomes set 
and muscles lose their elasticity if they are not kept 
supple by studious exercise. The vast majority of 
failures in any department of labor or commerce 
occur between the ages of forty-five and sixty, not 
because the man is unwilling to work at that time, 
but because, through the non-use of some of his 
faculties, or the partial use of most of his powers, he 
has lost the art of adaptation. As a consequence he 
loses what should be the large harvest of his later 
years because he cannot reap it. 



Most of the men who have been 

Industry: The conspicuously successful in life 

Foundation of a , . * .+ . , . u .+ 

TT x , TT . nave paid their tribute to the 

Useful, Happy, and ^ 

Honorable Life power of INDUSTRY in making 

their achievements possible. It 
brought them happiness and honor. Bismarck said: 
" There is one word which expresses this rule, this 
gospel — work; without work life is empty, useless, and 
unhappy. No man can be happy who does not work. 
To the youth on the threshold of life, I have not one 
word, but three words of advice to offer — work, work, 
WORK ! ' ' Gladstone said : "I have found my great- 
est happiness in labor. I early formed the habit of 
INDUSTRY, and it has been its own reward." Robert 
E. Lee said : " People have got to work. It is credit- 
able for them to do so ; their bodies and their minds are 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 55 

benefited by it, and those who can and will work 
will be benefited by it." Theodore Roosevelt writes: 
"The happiest man is he who has toiled hard and 
successfully in his life work. The work may be done 
in a thousand different ways — with the brains or the 
hands, in the study, the field, or the workshop; if it 
is honest work, honestly done, and well worth the 
doing, that is all we have a right to ask." 

"Great men were all great workers in their time, 
Steadfast in purpose, to their calling true; 
Keeping with single eye the end in view; 
Giving their youthful days and manhood's prime 
To ceaseless toil; matin and midnight chime 
Often upon their willing labors grew. 
In suffering schooled, their souls endurance knew, 
And over difficulties rose sublime." 

If you will read the lives of the famous men of the 
world — the statesmen, scholars, inventors, manufac- 
turers, scientists, and writers — you will find them to 
be one long record of how difficulties and obstacles 
were overcome by continuous INDUSTRY; in fact, it 
will be impossible to find a history of any worthy life 
which is not the story of persevering INDUSTRY. 
What pleasure can compare with that of being the 
master of one's craft — its secrets solved, its technical 
details perfectly mastered, its relationship to other 
industries thoroughly understood ? 



56 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

Our attention is not usually 

La o°fA EsS f ntial directed toward men until they 
to Self-Develop- , , , J 

ment nave already won success ; m conse- 

quence, we are very liable to forget 
how hard they had to work to become what they are. 
For instance, it took Johns Hopkins seven years of 
most drudging toil to make his first $800; Andrew 
Carnegie spent the first eighteen years of his working 
life in accumulating $1,000; Cecil Rhodes got hold of 
his first mine only after fifteen years of patient and 
careful work; Watt labored for thirty years to bring 
his condensing engine to perfection ; Stephenson gave 
twenty-five years to making his locomotive practical ; 
Lyman J. Gage slaved and drudged the larger part of 
his life, as errand boy, postal clerk, day laborer, night 
watchman, bookkeeper, and paying teller, before 
being fitted for a post of national trust and honor; 
after laboring his hardest for ten years Peter Cooper 
was earning only $9 per week. But the long and 
toilsome years are not to be estimated by the imme- 
diate financial returns ; they form the period of prep- 
aration, during which the qualities that all men 
admire are being developed. It is hard training, but 
hard training is always a wise investment of time. 
When the critical hour arrives the man who has been 
schooled and disciplined aright is always sure to win. 
The man who shirks or slurs his work because it does 
not pay large wages will end by having neither work 
nor wages, because he will have become a poor work- 
man. Idleness ends in inefficiency. The very worst 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 57 

result of the habit of carelessness or indifference is not 
felt by the employer but by the worker himself; for 
by not doing everything to the best of his ability he 
soon loses the ability to do anything well. 



"Thank God every morning 

Secre^fSeS 6 When 3™ **. ^ >" Wr ° te <*"*** 

Respect Kingsley, writer, scientist, and 

historian, "that you have some- 
thing to do that day which must be done, whether you 
like it or not. Being forced to work, and forced to do 
your best, will breed in you temperance, self-control, 
diligence, strength of will, content, and a hundred 
other virtues, which the idle never know." 

Very often we hear men say that the world owes 
them a living. Such a statement is usually an excuse 
for idleness. When the state of the case is examined 
carefully it will be found that we are in debt to the 
world and not the world to us. We are born into a 
civilization which was built up at infinite cost. 
Nearly every convenience and advantage we possess 
was won at the price of blood. It took three thousand 
battles to win the liberties and rights which are ours 
today. Thousands of our ancestors starved and 
languished in dungeons, or perished in the forests or 
in the sea, to erect the institutions and to create the 
opportunities which we inherit without an effort. 
After all this toil and pain and sacrifice, for a man to 
refuse his share of labor is the basest kind of shirking. 



58 Ideals of the i. c. s. fraternity 

To throw oneself upon the charity of a community, 
whether the man be poor or rich, is the unworthy act 
of idleness. The only difference between the weekly 
wage-earner and the man who inherits money is the 
difference of when the wage is paid ; the lowly worker 
is paid after his piece of work is done, the one who 
inherits wealth is paid in a lump before he begins his 
task; it is doubly dishonorable for him to be lazy 
because he steals his wages and offers not the slightest 
return. No man can be idle and hold his self- 
respect. When the publishing house of B alien tyne 
& Co., Edinburgh, went bankrupt and plunged 
Sir Walter Scott into debt, he took up his pen and 
worked as scarcely any man ever worked before. 
When chided by his friends for slaving so desperately, 
he said he could not save his self-respect if he spent 
an idle hour while his creditors remained unpaid. 
So, in spite of terrible pain, with old age and weak- 
ness creeping upon him, he rose every morning at 
five o'clock and wrote his wonderful romances 
and histories, until the whole world reverenced 
him even more as a man than it admired him as a 
writer. 

In 1832, when twenty-three years of age, Abraham 
Lincoln fell badly into debt as the result of a mercan- 
tile adventure which ended disastrously. The terrible 
responsibility darkened his life. He spent the next 
seventeen years in paying his creditors. "I had no 
way of speculating/ ' he said to a friend, "and could 
not earn money except by labor, and to earn by labor 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 59 

eleven hundred dollars beside my living seemed the 
work of a life-time." As late as 1849, when a member 
of Congress, he was still sending home money saved 
from his salary to be applied on those obligations. 
But by his unflagging INDUSTRY and determina- 
tion he held not only his self-respect, but he won the 
respect of every one else. It was the best investment 
of time and strength that Lincoln ever made, for it 
was the persistent toil to keep his self-respect that 
gave him the nickname of " Honest Abe." One of 
his biographers has said that that name " proved of 
greater service to himself and his country than if he 
had gained the wealth of Croesus." It made him the 
most-honored and best-loved President of the United 
States. 

Slothfulness does not neces- 
Slothfulness: A sarily mean absolute idleness — ■ 
Disease That is , . , . , . , 

Always Fatal hours, days, or weeks, in which a 

to Success man has no occupation whatever ; 

it implies a sluggishness, a don't- 
care spirit, a disposition to evade the strenuous, a 
tendency to do one's work without enthusiasm, as if 
it did not matter whether it were done or not. Sloth- 
fulness is a sure forerunner of failure. John Wana- 
maker, during the first eight years of his commercial 
career, did not miss one single day from business, was 
never late, and never allowed himself to be discour- 
aged; this, as much as anything else, contributed to 
his success. In the cases of men who have risen from 



60 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

lowly positions as employes the story admits of 
hardly a variation. The youth applies himself to his 
task with such diligence and ardor that he does his 
work without conscious effort ; his superior — foreman 
or superintendent — notices this feature and when a 
vacancy occurs which implies more difficult work, 
and, as a result, higher wages, the efficiency warrants 
a trial; the same INDUSTRY soon conquers the new 
situation and another promotion follows ; until at last 
the industrious man finds himself in the highest posi- 
tion possible to attain in that enterprise. But by 
then, the habit of INDUSTRY is acquired and cannot 
be shaken off ; so new and more difficult plans are put 
into operation — branch is added to branch, plant to 
plant, and suddenly the world recognizes the ability 
and calls the man famous. Such is the history of 
Andrew Carnegie and many another man. But many 
a workman who started with Carnegie is still drawing 
his weekly dole in the pay envelope, or is being sup- 
ported by kind relatives or a benevolent Common- 
wealth. If the difference is sought for diligently, it 
will be found in the fact that the unsuccessful worker 
never put enough INDUSTRY into his immediate 
task to qualify himself for a larger opportunity. It 
should also be stated here that the man who is 
destined to rise does not count his working hours by 
the signal of the whistle or siren. 

In this age, when necessity has involved the means 
of production in a maze of intricate machinery, 
based upon scientific principles, it is imperative 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 61 

that a man should know the "Why" as well as 
the "How." If a man knows only the "How," he is 
simply a part of the machine which he helps to work. 
If he knows the "Why," he is a mind towering 
above the machine and regarding it as a servant, an 
unconscious slave, of which he is the master. So 
it is imperative that they who wish to succeed should 
pass beyond mere manual proficiency and grasp the 
laws which govern their mechanical occupations. 
This involves study. After the actual wage work is 
finished the wise man will take up the mind work; 
he will devote himself to books and charts and prob- 
lems ; he will set aside a certain amount of time in the 
morning before the whistle blows, or at night after 
the siren ceases, to an acquisition of such knowledge 
as will make him invaluable and supreme in his own 
department, or will fit him to pass into another and a 
larger sphere. In no other way can a worker hope to 
advance. It is folly to say that this cannot be done. 
It can be done because it has been done, not once but 
thousands of times. The program that he lays down 
for himself may be full of difficulties, but as Marden 
says, "No man can rise to anything very great who 
allows himself to be tripped or thwarted by impedi- 
ments. His achievements will be in proportion to 
his ability to rise triumphantly over the stumbling 
blocks which trip others." There is no broad and 
smooth and level road to success; if there were we 
should never know what failure means and suc- 
cess would hardly be worth the winning. The wise 



62 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

Joseph de Maistre wrote to one who inquired about 
certain easy ways of learning foreign languages: 
" They are pure illusions. There are no easy methods 
of learning difficult things: the only method is, to 
close your door — and work." This may serve as a 
parable: " Close your door — and work!" Shut out 
all amusements that rob you of your strength and 
admit only such as are real recreations — which give 
vigor to the mind and refreshment to the body ; shut 
out all companions who lead you into waste of time, 
or money, or ability, and admit only those who 
stimulate your will and elevate your mind; shut out 
all habits that may prejudice you in the opinion of 
others, or weaken your resolution, or decrease your 
efficiency, and admit only such as will win general 
confidence and qualify you to seize future oppor- 
tunities. " Close your door — and work." 

"And Work!" It is still necessary to remove an 
ancient misconception. For centuries, in certain 
lands, the word "work" has been limited to muscular 
and manual occupations. But today we realize that 
the development of the mind is also work. It means 
the giving out of energy, and the latest science classes 
it as a physical effort. In order to acquire knowledge 
a man must make an effort which is as tiring to the 
system as any muscular occupation. The only way in 
which we feel a physical exertion is through the nerves, 
and the only way we feel a mental effort is likewise 
through the nerves. So all study is work; all knowl- 
edge is gained by work, The man who wishes to 



IDE ALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 63 

.achieve anything beyond the low level of mere sub- 
sistence must dedicate a certain portion of his time 
to intellectual INDUSTRY and thus make his mind 
the ally and comrade and director of his muscle. If 
anything may be termed the main road to success, 
it is this. 

Peter the Great, Czar of Russia, 

Ambition, Desires, had t dreams of what he might 

Ideals— Futile 5 . s + 

Without Industry do f or his P eo P le ! to bnn g them to 

pass he went abroad and worked 

as a common laborer — wielding the instruments of 
daily toil, bearing the drudgery without a murmur, 
and accepting the wages of an unskilled workman. 
The whole world honors the memory of Czar Peter. 
He knew that even to Royalty there was no easy way 
of making dreams into substantial realities — no way 
except that of honest and patient INDUSTRY. 
When John D. Rockefeller was a boy he was working 
out on a farm in New York State and dreaming of his 
future. One day he said to a farm boy about his own 
age: "I would like to own all the land in this valley, 
as far as I can see. I sometimes dream of wealth and 
power. Do you think we shall ever be worth one 
hundred thousand dollars, you and I? I hope to — 
some day." Soon afterwards he moved to Cleveland 
and found a position as office boy. "I had plenty of 
ambition then, and saw that, if I was to accomplish 
much, I would have to. work very, very hard, indeed." 
And he did. Every spare hour was given to study; 



64 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

every branch of business that he touched he mastered, 
down to the least detail, and out of small wages, by 
the time he was twenty-five years old, he had saved 
his first ten thousand dollars. Peter Cooper, long 
before he was wealthy or famous, cherished dreams 
of success, and of what he would do for the world. 
A combination of ill health and poverty allowed him 
only one year of school with which to begin. At 
eight years of age Peter was pulling hair from rabbit 
skins to make hat pulp. He learned how to make 
shoes for the family by tearing an old boot to pieces. 
At seventeen he reached New York, with ten dollars 
in his pocket — the total savings of nine years of labor. 
For five years he worked as an apprentice in a car- 
riage factory at two dollars a month and board. 
During all of this time he studied at night, without 
.assistance or encouragement. When his apprentice- 
ship was finished he took a place in a mill at nine 
dollars a week, and, immediately applying his studies 
to a practical end, he invented a shearing machine 
which netted him five hundred dollars. He continued 
to study and to save, and soon bought a bankrupt 
glue factory, which he put on a paying basis within a 
year by means of machinery which he himself devised. 
For thirty years he carried on the business single- 
handed. He rose at daylight, lit the fires in office 
and factory, kept his eye on every detail of the proc- 
ess, but, what was more important, he continued his 
mechanical and scientific studies until he was equal 
to any emergency. He constructed rolling mills on 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 65 

plans of his own and made a fortune. When the 
directors of the B. & 0. Railroad gave up the con- 
struction of the road after building thirteen miles, 
because it necessitated curves and grades which no 
engine could take, Cooper stepped in, completed the 
work, built a locomotive that would take the sharpest 
curve at high speed and keep the track, and was at 
once recognized as one of the most practical and suc- 
cessful men of the world. And, after years of almost 
unparalleled INDUSTRY, he was able to realize his 
dreams and ambitions by erecting and endowing the 
great Cooper Institute in New York City, by which 
thousands of men have been equipped for success. 
Truly, ambition is a mockery, desire is a delusion, 
ideals are a burden, unless supported by INDUSTRY. 



Thalberg, the famous musician, 
Prosperity and sa ^ t ^ at he never plaved a selec- 

Progress the Legit- ,. . ,,- ^-ii 11 

imate Fruit of tl0n m P ubllC untl1 he had re " 

Industry hearsed it fifteen hundred times. 

Industry is necessary to efficiency. 
Great results never come by accident, they are ac- 
counted for by adequate causes. Reynolds, the 
master-artist, said: "If you have great talents, 
INDUSTRY will improve them; if you have but 
moderate talents, INDUSTRY will supply their defi- 
ciency. Nothing is denied to well-directed labor; 
nothing is to be obtained without it." No man's 
powers are so great that they cannot be made greater. 



66 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

If you have a natural aptitude for some particular 
work, INDUSTRY will make you an acknowledged 
expert in that department. 

The very worst folly is to believe that because 
you can do a thing easily you will be sure to succeed 
in that direction. In a few years you will discover 
that men who are not naturally so clever as your- 
self are passing you in the race. The explana- 
tion will be found in the fact that you have never 
trained and developed the talents with which you 
started, and, in consequence, they have remained 
stationary. Many a man who does a certain kind 
of work simply because there is a demand for it, 
although he does not possess conspicuous native 
ability, becomes so proficient by study and indus- 
trious experiment that he outdistances his rivals 
- and wins the rewards that might have gone to others. 
One talent, when backed by INDUSTRY, will accom- 
plish more than five talents fettered with indolence. 

Most of the accomplishments which are attributed 
to genius are simply the result of hard work. When 
another has succeeded it is very easy to excuse our 
own failure by saying that the other man had genius. 
When a friend was talking about a certain person 
being a miracle of genius, Sydney Smith broke in upon 
the speaker, saying, "Yes, he is a miracle of genius 
because he is a miracle of labor; because, instead of 
trusting to the resources of his own single mind, he 
has ransacked a thousand minds; because he makes 
use of the accumulated wisdom of ages, and takes 



IDEALS OF TH E I. C. S. FRATERNITY 67 

as his departure the very last line and boundary to 
which science has advanced; because it has always 
been the object of his life to assist every intellectual 
gift of Nature, however munificent and however 
splendid, with every resource that art could suggest 
and every attention that diligence could bestow." 
It is very significant, and it should settle the question 
for us, that nearly every one who has been called a 
genius has claimed that hard work was the secret of 
his success. Lord Macaulay sometimes wrote for 
twelve hours at a stretch. "I have made myself 
what I am," he said, "by intense labor." When 
Turner, the artist, was asked the secret of his marvel- 
ous success, he replied that he "had no secret but 
hard work." John Ruskin once said, "When I hear 
a young man spoken of as giving promise of high 
genius, the first question I ask about him is, always, 
'Does he work?' " Byron said, "The only genius 
that I know anything of is to work sixteen hours a 
day." Dickens, the novelist, made a similar con- 
fession: "My imagination would never have served 
me as it has but for the habit of commonplace, 
humble, patient, daily toiling." Speaking of himself, 
Alexander Hamilton said: "People sometimes attri- 
bute my success to genius. All the genius I know 
anything about is hard work." Daniel Webster, in 
an address delivered on his seventieth birthday, said: 
"Work made me what I am. I never ate a bit of 
idle bread in my life." The man who made the most 
far-reaching scientific discovery of all time, Isaac 



68 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

Newton, left this record: " If I have done the public 
any service it is due to nothing but industry and 
patient thought." 

Whenever the name of John Ericcson is mentioned 
men invariably exclaim, "Now, there was a genius." 
His inventions were so numerous, and so revolution- 
ary in their nature, that it is no wonder superhuman 
powers were attributed to him. The present era of 
naval construction began when Ericcson's turreted 
iron-clad "Monitor" vanquished the "Merrimac" 
in Hampton Roads. A few sentences from the "Life 
of Ericcson" will reveal the secret of his 'genius': 
"He was at the shipyard before any of the work- 
men, and was the last to leave. In the construction 
of so novel a craft as the 'Monitor' difficulties of a 
puzzling nature came up every day. If Ericcson could 
not solve them on the spot, he studied the matter 
in the quiet of the night, and was ready with his 
drawings in the morning." Writing of his normal 
life, after the urgency of the Civil War was over, 
the same biographer says: "He was utterly wrapt 
up in his work, his days knew scarcely any variation. 
His time was divided according to rule. For thirty 
years he was called at seven o'clock in the morning, 
and took a bath of very cold water, ice being added 
to it in summer. After some gymnastic exercises 
came breakfast, always of eggs, tea, and brown 
bread. His second and last meal of the day, dinner, 
never varied from chops or steak, some vegetables, 
and tea and brown bread again. During the daytime 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 69 

he was accustomed to work at his desk or drawing 
table for about ten hours. After dinner he resumed 
work until ten, when he started out for a walk of 
an hour or more, which always ended his day. The 
last desk work accomplished every day was to make 
a record in his diary, always exactly one page long. 
This diary comprises more than fourteen thousand 
pages, thus covering a period of forty years, during 
which he omitted but twenty days in 1856, when he 
had a finger crushed by machinery." If any life is 
an example of the triumphant power of methodical, 
persistent INDUSTRY, it is surely that of John 
Ericcson. 

Every law of Nature discovered by man, every 
force applied to human progress, every principle of 
mechanics worked out for quickening or cheapening 
production, every invention that has brought the 
resources of the universe within our reach, every 
added step in the facilities of transportation, every 
book that has increased and broadened our knowl- 
edge, every work of art that has given us pleasure, 
stands as a monument of INDUSTRY. 

While some believe that a mysterious something 
called "genius" is necessary to success, others hold 
that " luck" is the principal element. If you question 
men as to what they mean by luck they will invari- 
ably say that the envied man of achievement had 
some chance of an exceptional kind. Perhaps he had. 
But there is probably no one who does not have some 
chances of an extraordinary kind. The difference 



70 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

is not in the chances but in the fact that some 
men seize them and others do not. A chance is 
simply an opportunity, and when it comes, only 
INDUSTRY can make the most of it. Ever since the 
world began there was the chance to make a steam 
engine, a locomotive, a cotton-gin, a telephone, a 
sewing-machine, a reaper, a dynamo, a phonograph. 
The energies of Nature and the principles of mechan- 
ics embodied in. these inventions are not of recent 
origin: they have been in the world since the begin- 
ning of time, but the uncounted millions of the past 
never thought of them, never utilized them. Watt, 
Stephenson, Whitney, Bell, Howe, McCormick, and 
Edison gave long and tedious years to study and 
experiment, until their INDUSTRY conquered every 
difficulty, and achieved success. It was not luck but 
labor, not inspiration but INDUSTRY. 

Neither can it be said that the well-known men of 
achievement were particularly favored by circum- 
stances. Stephenson could not read or write at the 
age of eighteen; Hunter, the celebrated anatomist, 
reached manhood before his education began ; Faraday 
and Davy were handicapped from the start by their 
neglected youth; Edison went to school for two 
months; Carnegie had practically no schooling at 
all. In 1902, one of the editors of the " Library of 
Inspiration and Achievement' ' gave a series of 
questions and answers regarding the men whom the 
world was then honoring, to show the lowly occu- 
pations from which they had risen: 



I DEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATE RNITY 71 

"What was the President of the New York Central 
Railroad ? 

A freight clerk. 
What was the President of the great Southern 
Pacific system? 
A clerk. 
What was the President of the United States Steel 
Company? 

A day laborer. 
What was the President of the Pennsylvania Rail- 
road? 

A surveyor. 
What was the President of the Metropolitan Street 
Railway Company, of New York City? 
A flagman. 
What was the President of the Western Union 
Telegraph Company? 
A telegraph operator. 
What was the President of the New York Life 
Insurance Company? 

A -fifteen- dollar -per -week clerk. 
What was the President of the largest bank in 
America today? 

A messenger boy. 
What was the head of the largest publishing house 
in America? 

A newsboy." 
These are only a few of the innumerable instances 
which might be adduced. Almost every great com- 
mercial enterprise can tell a story equally romantic. 



72 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

As the years pass the list can be brought up to date 
without weakening the argument. And if each of 
these successful men could be questioned as to the 
qualities which won such achievements, the answer 
would be, "The HABITS of INDUSTRY, CON- 
CENTRATION, and SELF-RELIANCE; but first 
and foremost— INDUSTRY." 



There must always be sixty 
Time: Cannot be , , , , . 

T k F u minutes m every hour and twenty- 

four hours in every day. No one 
can rob us of our time. Men may steal our money, 
defraud us of our property, take away our reputation 
— but there will still be sixty minutes in every hour 
and twenty -four hours in every day belonging to us. 
Time is of the utmost importance, and when we have 
discovered its value we have staked out our biggest 
claim in life. The easiest way to spoil tomorrow is 
to waste today. Killing time is the surest way of 
committing business suicide. Marconi, the most 
daring and persistent of inventors, says: "I cannot 
remain idle. Ever since I was a child I have had 
this feeling. Time means everything. If you cannot 
do a thing here, do it elsewhere. In an hour gained 
there may be accomplished the one thing you have 
been striving for." 

It is true beyond a question that the majority of 
men spend more time in sleeping than is necessary. 
No definite specified allowance can be laid down 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 73 

as a rule because men differ in the amount of 
rest necessary to recuperate their exhausted nerves. 
But it has been demonstrated beyond a doubt 
that one can cultivate the habit of doing a vast 
amount of work with a very few hours in bed. 
Ericcson slept only four hours a night for a 
hundred days while building the " Monitor." John 
Hunter, the celebrated scientist, would not per- 
mit himself more than four hours' sleep in the 
twenty-four. Charles Broadway Rouss always rose 
exactly at 4 a. m. and worked steadily for four- 
teen hours each day. Peter Cooper claimed that 
Nature intended man to get up with the sun 
and followed that rule throughout his life. Hume, 
the historian, worked thirteen hours a day at his 
desk, besides other occupations. Such instances 
could easily be multiplied. It is safe to assert that 
there are thousands of men who could qualify them- 
selves for success by devoting just one of their sleep- 
ing hours to study, and their general health would 
not be affected in any way by the sacrifice. 



One of the causes of wasted 
Industry is the time ig the impression that the 

Wise Economy of r 

Time spare moments and odd hours 

are not of any value, that they 

are too brief for any purpose. For instance, we often 

hear it said, "I've had no time for book-learning; 

I've had to work for a living all my life." If such 



74 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

an one could only realize what vast results may be 
obtained by using the unoccupied minutes, such an 
excuse for ignorance would never again be offered. 
"I learned grammar when I was a private soldier, " 
writes William Cobbett. "The edge of my berth, 
or that of the guard-bed, was my seat to study in; 
my knapsack was my bookcase; a bit of board lying 
on my lap was my writing table, and the task did not 
demand anything like a year of my life. I had no 
money to purchase candle or oil; in winter, it was 
rarely that I could get any evening light but that of 
the fire, and only my turn even at that. I had no 
moment of time that I could call my own ; and I had 
to read and write amidst the talking, laughing, sing- 
ing, whistling, and bawling of at least half a score of 
the most thoughtless of men." Yet in spite of the 
late start and the difficulties of the beginning, Cobbett 
lived to write a standard book on Grammar and was 
recognized as a leading scholar for several decades. 
He was famous also for many other books of education 
and research. Orison Swett Marden gives us the 
life of Dr. Rittenhouse, the famous astronomer, in a 
perfect form — brief, comprehensive, inspiring: "Dr. 
Rittenhouse was a joiner. His thirst for knowledge 
was intense. He passed his nights in study and 
committed to memory the few books he could lay 
his hands on. He covered the fences, barn doors, 
and loose shingles with diagrams. He mended the 
clocks of the poor, and repaired the rude machinery 
of the town. Alone and unaided he became an 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 75 

accurate surveyor, and by tireless study placed him- 
self among the great mathematicians of the world/ ' 
Benjamin Franklin snatched minutes from his meal 
times for study and in the course of a month saved 
many hours. Henry Kirke White mastered the 
Greek language and literature while walking to and 
from a lawyer's office. Science owes much to 
Cuvier for the result of studies pursued while riding 
in a carriage from place to place on other duties. 
Hugh Miller, the stonemason of Cromarty, became 
a world-famous geologist and a versatile scholar by 
devoting his evenings to books after working all day 
in a stone quarry. Humphrey Davy, who became 
not only a great scientist but also, by means of his 
miner's safety lamp, a benefactor of humanity, pre- 
pared himself by utilizing his spare minutes study- 
ing and experimenting in an attic. 

One of the most remarkable stories of self -educa- 
tion in spite of disheartening circumstances is that 
of Samuel Lee of England (born in 1783, died in 
1852), as told by William Mathews in his inspiring 
book, " Conquering Success." Sent to a charity 
school at Lagnor, near Shrewsbury, the lad made such 
snail-like progress that his master pronounced him 
one of the dullest boys that had ever passed under 
his hand. Apprenticed to a carpenter, he worked 
at the trade until he was twenty-one, and to occupy 
his vacant hours took to reading. Puzzled by some 
Latin words which he encountered, and hearing the 
Latin language read in a Catholic chapel where he 



76 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

was working, he resolved, at the age of seventeen, 
to learn that tongue. Buying a second-hand Latin 
grammar, he rose early and studied late till he had 
learned it by heart. He next bought an old Latin 
dictionary and Beza's Latin Testament", and began 
translating. In his eighteenth year he read, unaided, 
the Latin Bible, Florus, some of Cicero's Orations, 
Caesar's Commentaries, Justin, Sallust, Virgil, Horace's 
Odes, and Ovid's Epistles. But, asks the reader, 
as he had to live on his wages (then six shillings 
a week; later, eight shillings), how could he buy 
all these books? "I never had all at once," said the 
poor student, "but generally read one book, and sold 
it, the price of which, with a little added, enabled 
me to buy another; and this, being read, was sold to 
procure the next." Ending his apprenticeship at 
.carpentry, he resolved to learn Greek, and buying a 
Greek Grammar, a Testament, and a Lexicon, set him- 
self to master that difficult tongue. In a short time 
he read and translated all of the important Greek 
classics. One day, while repairing some benches in 
a synagogue, he saw a Hebrew Bible, and felt a desire 
to read it. An inflammation of the eyes, and every 
possible discouragement from those around him, now 
threatened to hinder his progress; but study had 
become his greatest happiness and he returned to it 
daily for the enjoyment it yielded and as a rest from 
manual toil. Buying Bythmer's Hebrew Grammar, 
with his "Lyra Prophetica," and a Psalter, he read 
the latter, with Onkelos's Targum, some of the 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 77 

Syriac Testament, and some of the Samaritan Pen- 
tateuch. 

He was now nearly twenty-five years old, and had 
a stock of tools worth twenty-five pounds. Sent to 
Worcester to repair a house, he began to reflect that 
his studies, however fascinating, were practically 
useless to one in his situation, and marrying, sold his 
books and took to his trade of carpentry as his only 
means of self-support. A carpenter he might have 
remained to the end of his days, but for a fire in the 
house he was repairing, which destroyed the chest of 
tools with which he was earning a living. Destitu- 
tion now stared him in the face. He was cast upon 
the world, as he said, " without a friend, a shilling, or 
any means of subsistence." But this very accident, 
which seemed to him to bode nothing but ruin, was 
ultimately the very means of lifting him out of 
obscurity and conducting him to the high position 
which his arduous labors had fitted him to fill. Too 
poor to buy new tools, he thought, while devising 
means to keep the wolf from the door, of opening a 
primary school and teaching children their letters 
and some of the most elementary branches of edu- 
cation; but with all his mastery of languages, he was 
defective in the humblest branches of knowledge, 
and therefore set promptly and resolutely to work 
to learn arithmetic and penmanship sufficient to 
teach them to little children. 

Gradually, the extraordinary attainments and 
simple, sterling character of Lee won him friends, 



78 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

and the story of "the learned carpenter" was told far 
and wide. Presently the news of his disaster reached 
the ears of one who was able and ready to help him. 
Lee was now supplied with the necessary books, and 
he attacked and mastered in succession the Arabic, 
Persian, and Hindoostanee tongues, continuing to 
prosecute his studies while serving as a private in 
the local militia. At last he found a teacher's posi- 
tion in a school at Shrewsbury and also an oppor- 
tunity to teach in private; and finally, at the age of 
thirty, he entered the University of Cambridge, from 
which he graduated with mathematical honors. 
The next year he was elected Professor of Arabic in 
the University. He became the complete master 
of eighteen languages, and died, honored by the whole 
world as one of its greatest scholars. 

Such an achievement should be an inspiration to 
every man. It is a practical rebuke to idleness, 
hopelessness, and lack of ambition. It would not 
be wise, of course, for every man to take up the study 
of foreign languages. But what Samuel Lee did in 
the classics any other man may do in the arts and 
sciences — in electricity, chemistry, engineering, or 
the branches of learning which make manufacture 
successful. That is, any other man can do it if he 
will study as persistently, use his time as wisely, and 
exercise his will as courageously as did Lee. Obsta- 
cles may be surmounted, difficulties can be overcome, 
by hard work. The high and honorable places of 
life are the rewards of INDUSTRY. No level is too 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 79 

low as a starting point. And with the facilities of 
education so easy to obtain today, every man who 
does not profit by them must be regarded as 
unworthy of the privileges and unfit for the prizes 
which this age affords. 



Concentration 



Lt 


Concentration 


m 



The value of a virtue or quality increases with the 
passage of time. Long ago, when every man worked 
for himself in a thinly populated world, in which the 
resources of nature had not been gathered by mil- 
lions of eager hands, it was not necessary or wise for 
a man to concentrate his attention or powers. He 
could be his own mason, carpenter, and smith; he 
must draw his own plans, fashion what tools he 
needed, provide meat for the family by his personal 
skill, gather his supply of fruit or vegetables, fight his 
battles single-handed, doctor his own wounds or ills, 
carry what messages he wished to transmit to friend 
or foe — in short, he must be able and ready to do 
everything except bury himself, and in some primi- 
tive societies a man even made his own coffin. The 
vast increase of population, especially in the lands 
where men mass in cities, has entirely changed the 
program of life. It seems at first sight like a contra- 
diction but it is undoubtedly true that the man who 
has the best chance of success is the one who can do 
the least number of things; that is, provided he can 
do those things more efficiently than other men. 
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, ''If a man can write a 
better book, preach a better sermon, or make a better 
mousetrap than his neighbor, though he build his 
house in the woods, the world will make a beaten 



83 



84 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

track to his door." The same wise philosopher also 
said, "The one prudence in life is CONCENTRA- 
TION, the one evil is dissipation." 

What a tragedy it is to fail, especially in a world 
where success is comparatively easy if sought along 
the right lines. One of England's earliest kings has 
carried the secret of his failure across all the cen- 
turies in his name, "Ethelred, the Unready." Readi- 
ness today implies the skill to do the work that needs 
to be done — a concentrated brain and a trained hand. 
If Fortune should ever write an advertisement there 
could be little doubt about the wording: "Wanted: 
a man who can do anything better than any one 
else!" Everything yields to well-directed skill; to 
get skill you must use will. Skill is the result of 
continuous application in one direction, until the 
mind or the muscles, or both, form the habit of work- 
ing without conscious effort. For such men there is 
an opening in every field of manufacture, science, and 
finance, while there is only a precarious chance for 
the one who has dabbled and dipped into a score of 
things and has failed to make himself the master of 
any department. A little while ago a man of about 
forty years of age strolled into an office and asked 
for employment. "What can you do?" inquired 
the junior partner. "Oh, anything!" was the 
reply. "Sorry," came the answer, "but we haven't 
any such place vacant. We can do with an extra 
shipping clerk and an expert stenographer; we want 
immediately four machinists, one toolmaker, one 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 85 

patternmaker, two forgers, and three molders; 
but we haven't a job big enough for a man who 
can do any thing.' ' 

To excel in whatever one 

R ; a " ze * he W ^ rth attempts should be the aim of 
of the Object You F , , . , 

Wish to Attain every man who cherishes ambi- 

tion. Mediocrity — the ability to 
do mental or manual work fairly well — neither merits 
nor wins any of the great prizes of life; in fact, it 
keeps the mind in a state of alarm because, without 
a moment's warning some one more skilful may pass 
us and snatch the reward, or even supplant and so 
deprive us of the meager wage of ordinary work. In 
looking back over the men pre-eminent in their own 
fields, we are forced to believe that each did the very 
best of which he was capable; it is scarcely possible 
to think of Phidias being a better sculptor than he 
was, or Julius Caesar a more capable soldier, or 
Shakespeare a truer dramatist, or Isaac Newton a 
more careful scientist, or Washington a sublimer 
patriot, or Wagner a more accomplished musician, 
or A. T. Stewart a keener merchant. There are no 
crowns in the world for those who are content to do 
what necessity compels and who do it without ardor 
and conscious skill. The supreme joy of life is found 
in the sense of mastery — a feeling that comes when 
difficulties have been overcome, when it is possible to 
look back over the days of immaturity and doubtful 
experiment knowing that the position now attained 



86 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

is unassailable — the result of persistent, concentrated 
effort. The field in which such a triumph is won may 
not be a highly distinguished one, not such an one as 
commands the admiring attention of our fellow men, 
but the sense of victory will be just as real and the 
rewards quite as precious. Probably the pride of 
personal attainment or accomplishment is the only 
pride that is not foolish. Why should a king be 
proud of a throne he did not win, or a nobleman of a 
title he has not merited, or the legatee of a fortune 
he did not create? But the man who has made 
nature give up her secrets, or has harnessed the forces 
of the universe to the car of human progress, or has 
increased the general wealth by mechanical and labor- 
saving devices, or has made himself indispensable to 
the welfare of his age or country, may well be proud 
of the results of his power. Such a goal is worthy of 
any effort, and happy indeed is the man who has set 
himself to reach it at any cost. 



One of the first things an 
Our Senses, Facul- am bitious man should do is to 
ties, and Powers 1 £ * £ « . 

. ' , x make a careful survey of his 

Are Many and of J 

Various Uses resources. He will then discover 

that he is equipped to do a great 
number of very different things. He is a chest of 
tools, admirably constructed and ready for use, by 
which he can engage in a score, or a hundred, dis- 
similar occupations. And behind these tools, ready 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 87 

to direct them, is the brain. Each instrument is 
connected with the brain by a nerve, which acts like 
a telephone wire, carrying messages back and forth. 
The first instinct of life is to do something with the 
hands. The eyes see something that is possible; the 
nerves carry the message to the brain and the brain 
sends it on to the muscles controlling the hands ; then 
if the will gives its permission the fingers set to work. 
But when the hands alone are engaged it is in the 
coarsest kind of labor — digging, for instance. After 
one day of experiment the mind can be freed from 
the occupation, for the man has learned to perform 
his task by the automatic use of the muscles; even 
the eyes can be released from service and the digging 
proceed in the dark. If one should use his hands 
to fashion and adjust material, he will require a 
longer use of the brain and the eyes will be needed 
all the time. As we rise in the scale of occupation, 
and the work becomes more complex, more of the 
powers are constantly engaged. When we reach 
perhaps the greatest work a man can do, every single 
sense, faculty, and power is concentrated and engaged 
to the utmost. Michael Angelo, in painting the 
Sistine Chapel in Rome, probably had his entire being 
focused under his will and bent to the accomplish- 
ment of the masterpiece. Balancing himself upon a 
platform, his hands wielding the brush, his eye tracing 
lines and valuing colors, his mind picturing forth the 
great conception, his heart flinging a wealth of senti- 
ment into the production, his memory pouring out the 



88 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

treasures which he had seen and heard in the past, 
his lips directing his assistants — never was there an 
example of such complete CONCENTRATION; and 
the result has stood the test of centuries and is the 
wonder and delight of the world today. Michael 
Angelo, when engaged upon his great creations, 
would often drop down in his working clothes and 
sleep upon the floor, to be ready again for work with 
the first light of morning. When reproached by 
friends for such solitary and unsocial habits, he 
would reply, "Art is a jealous mistress, and requires 
the whole man." 

It will be readily seen that a 
Gather the Various man , g yalue himself Qr ^ 

Parts of Your A ..,..' 

Nature Together worth to civilization, depends 
upon his ability to gather the 
various parts of his nature together and to hold 
them steadily upon one object for the accomplish- 
ment of a definite purpose. Knowing what these 
powers are, what is the use and relative value of 
each, estimating what one faculty can accomplish 
if working by itself and how much greater its possi- 
bilities are when combined with the rest, we appre- 
ciate the importance of CONCENTRATION. The 
physical parts of the body, if engaged without intel- 
lectual direction and inspiration, will consign the 
worker to a life of drudgery with the scantiest returns 
for his trouble; the engagement of the mind alone, 
however lofty its flight, unless the more practical 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 89 

powers are likewise used, will end in the disappoint- 
ments of the mere dreamer. Ruskin says: "It is 
only by labor that thought can be made healthy, and 
only by thought that labor can be made happy; 
and the two cannot be separated with impunity." 
Undoubtedly the great difference between the suc- 
cessful man and the failure does not lie in the amount 
of work done by each but in the amount of intelli- 
gent work. One man puddles iron and when he has 
worked for hours the product is still iron; another 
man takes the same metal, adds brains to it, and 
though in its mineral form it is still iron, yet by virtue 
of the constructive and creative thought it has 
become a machine. The difference for instance, in 
the wages of the tw T o men, represents the difference 
between manual labor alone and manual labor under 
mental direction. The quarryman cuts out blocks of 
marble by mere muscle; Saint-Gaudens takes one of 
those blocks, directs his hand by his brain under the 
guidance of his eye, and produces a piece of statuary 
that is worth its weight in gold. Henry Bessemer 
puzzled over the problem of how to make steel from 
iron in sufficient quantity to put to universal use. 
When small pieces of iron had to be carbonized in a 
charcoal fire under a draught of hand-bellows the 
cost of making steel was so high and the product so 
limited in amount that it could be used only for 
sword blades, cutlery, and watchsprings. It was 
worth three hundred dollars a ton and England 
controlled the world's market with 50,000 tons a year. 



90 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

So Bessemer put his brain to work and made a 
thorough study of metallurgy. He mastered what 
was known of the science in a few months. Next he 
took a small iron-foundry in London and began to use 
his eyes and hands as well as his brain. In the 
course of eighteen months of tremendous work he 
formed the idea of making steel by using atmospheric 
oxygen. Attempt after attempt failed, process after 
process was useless, crucible after crucible was dis- 
carded; every penny that Bessemer could find was 
sunk in the numerous experiments; he himself was 
made ill by the tremendous work and anxiety ; but at 
last, when every one was ridiculing his unproductive 
endeavors, success came. In six years of CONCEN- 
TRATION, by using all his faculties and powers, 
Bessemer changed the Age of Iron into the Age of 
Steel. In twenty years the output of steel rose to 
four million tons a year while the cost of production 
dropped to forty dollars a ton. Bessemer died in 
1898, at the age of eighty-four, having won titles of 
honor from nearly all of the European Governments, 
besides vast wealth and the gratitude of mankind. 



A man who concentrates every 
A Man Using His force of his nature [n Qne direction 
Entire Power is 1 , . , 

Irresistible meets every obstacle with an 

impact that nothing can with- 
stand. Isaac Singer was an actor, but having caught 
a glimpse of Elias Howe's Sewing Machine, he 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 91 

determined to make and market a similar device. In 
eleven days, working twenty-one hours out of each 
twenty-four, he succeeded in his task and immedi- 
ately advertised, sent out agents, and began to take 
orders. 

But by far the most notable example of CONCEN- 
TRATION is Thomas A. Edison. His whole life might 
be taken as an illustration, but a few characteristic 
incidents must suffice. When Edison was a newsboy 
on the Grand Trunk Railroad, he was consumed with 
a thirst for knowledge. Unfortunately there was no 
one to guide him and he was compelled to learn the 
proper use of his abilities by a series of mistakes. 
The run of his train ended at Detroit, where there was 
a well-stocked public library. He made up his mind 
that he would read every book in the building. He 
started with great enthusiasm and determination but 
after having studied all of the volumes on one shelf of 
fifteen feet in length, he came to the conclusion that 
his plan was a mistake. He was spreading his mind 
over all the universe and he would never get through 
the self-imposed task. Likewise, he was wasting 
strength and time upon some books that were out of 
date, and upon others that were foolish and which 
could be of no practical value to him, while many 
were too abstruse or advanced for a boy who had 
passed through no severe elementary training — 
Edison having enjoyed only two months of schooling. 
So he wisely decided to confine his studies to the 
natural sciences — a course which gave the bent to all 



92 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

his subsequent work and which laid the foundation 
for his wonderful achievements. 

When questioned by Orison Swett Marden as to 
what he considered the first requisite for success in 
his own field or in any other, Edison replied: "The 
ability to apply your physical and mental energies to 
one problem incessantly without growing weary." 
He has sometimes worked sixty consecutive hours 
upon one problem. When developing the automatic 
telegraph, Edison sat in the midst of a pile of chemical 
books five feet high when placed upon each other on 
the floor, and near at hand was apparatus for con- 
ducting experiments. The books were the latest 
scientific works ordered from New York, London, 
and Paris. He pored over them night and day. 
Nothing could drag him from his study. He ate at 
his desk and slept in his chair. In six weeks he had 
devoured the contents of the books, had made 
thousands of experiments on the formulas, and had 
produced one solution — the only one in the world 
that would do the very thing he wanted: record two 
hundred words a minute on a wire hundreds of miles 
in length. 

At another time, after the success of the incan- 
descent lamp had been proclaimed to the world, all of 
the experimental lamps in Menlo Park suddenly went 
out after burning for a month. It was a terrible dis- 
appointment ; the general public laughed at the wild 
dreams of the inventor and called him a " visionary"; 
the stock of the Company ran so low that no one 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 93 

would buy it; Edison's great invention was pro- 
nounced a failure by scientific men. But the inventor 
took hold of the.question in his characteristic manner: 
" If those lamps will burn for a month there is no rea- 
son, in the nature of things, why they will not burn 
for a year, " he said. There was a reason but it took 
incredible labor to find it out. Then began the most 
exciting and exhaustive series of experiments ever 
undertaken. Edison retired to his laboratory, where 
he ate and worked and slept — sleeping, however, only 
when his trusted assistants took his place. When 
one remembers that the light in an incandescent lamp 
burns only in a vacuum the difficulties of experi- 
menting may be realized. It was thought that the 
globe was imperfect and the air not sufficiently 
exhausted, so expert glass blowers were brought from 
all over the country and set to work. It became 
evident that the defect was not there. Edison's eyes 
grew weak from studying the brilliant carbon filament. 
For days he ate nothing and seemed surprised that 
his assistants should suggest rest and food after 
fifteen hours or more of continuous work. His own 
excited nerves almost precluded sleep, because, 
before the inventor's eyes could close, a new test 
would suggest itself and he must spring back to work. 
At length he broke down from sheer exhaustion. 
The moment he was well enough he rushed to the 
laboratory for further experimentation. Five months 
of this terrific CONCENTRATION solved the prob- 
lem. The carbon filament had been made of charred 



94 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

paper and was impractical. It took no less than two 
thousand experiments with different substances to 
discover that nothing but bamboo fiber would meet 
the need; and then success was won. 

At the age of forty-seven Edison said: " Judging 
by the standards of the ordinary man's working day, 
I am much older than I look. The average working 
day is eight hours long. For twenty-one years I have 
averaged nineteen hours per day. That makes me 
eighty-two years old. You see my hair is gray; I 
shall soon be one hundred. Anything I have begun 
is always on my mind, and I am not easy, while away 
from it, until it is finished. Life was never more full 
of joy for me than when, a poor boy, I began to think 
out experiments in telegraphy, and to experiment with 
the cheapest and crudest appliances. But, now that 
, I have all I need, and am my own master, I continue 
to find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the 
work that precedes what the World calls success/ ' 



"The longer I live/' wrote 
Gather the Forces Fowell Buxton, "the more deeply 

TT , ,, ~ am I convinced that that which 

Under the Com- 
mand of Your Will ma kes the difference between one 
man and another, between the 
weak and the powerful, the great and the insignifi- 
cant, is energy, invincible determination, a purpose 
once formed — then, death or victory." 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 95 

The will is the Washington in every endeavor for 
independence or supremacy. It sends the bugle 
message "To Arms" along each nerve, mustering 
and marshaling every power and marching them 
forward to victory. Without the will our various 
attributes and powers are only individuals, moving 
without direction, acting without purpose, operating 
without support. When brought together and com- 
manded by the will we get the advantages of co-opera- 
tion and combination; if one faculty is baffled or 
beaten back the will sends others to its aid, if one 
quality is insufficient to surmount an obstacle or 
overthrow a difficulty then the will moves reserves 
forward, and the whole man succeeds where a part of 
the man would have failed. The pathway of life is 
strewn thick with broken men, like the battle field of 
a lost cause on the morning following the fight. In 
looking at these pathetic failures we are often sur- 
prised to learn that they were men of unquestioned 
ability — men of brilliant brain, cultivated mind, 
inventive skill, mechanical ability, artistic gifts, 
physical force. But they never got all of their 
powers into action because there was no commanding 
officer who could mass and move their reserves and 
determine the plan of campaign. They fell and failed 
for lack of the dominating will. 



96 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

"There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, 
Can circumvent, or hinder, or control, 
The firm resolve of a determined soul. 
Gifts count for nothing ; will alone is great ; 
All things give way before it, soon or late. 
What obstacle can stay the mighty force 
Of the sea-seeking river in its course, 
Or cause the ascending orb of day to wait? 
Each well-born soul must win what it deserves. 
Let the fool prate of luck. The fortunate 
Is he whose earnest purpose never swerves, 
Whose slightest action, or inaction serves 
The one great aim. Why, even death stands still 
And waits an hour sometimes for such a will." 

There were ages of brilliant intellect and inventive 
skill before our own, and yet they were sterile of prac- 
tical or beneficent results. With the death of 
Alexander the Great, the power of will seemed spent 
and only intellect remained. Alexander awoke the 
mind of the world, but the mind is powerless unless 
directed by will. During the century following the 
death of the mighty Greek Conquerer men had the 
ability and the means to create a modern civilization 
but they lacked the purpose. About 300 B. C. 
Euclid wrote "The Elements of Geometry," from 
which we learn today. Nicetus of Syracuse taught 
that not only did the earth move, but that it revolved 
upon its axis — an opinion quoted by Cicero. Eratos- 
thenes believed the earth to be round and actually 
measured its circumference as 30,000 miles, instead 
of 25,000, as we now know it to be. Aristarchus of 
Alexandria — a city which then had a University of 
14,000 students and a public library of 700,000 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 97 

volumes — measured solar and lunar distances by 
means of angles just as we do today. Hipparchus 
discovered the procession of the equinoxes, invented 
the planisphere, and applied spherical trigonometry to 
the solution of astronomical problems. Ctesibius laid 
the foundations of hydro-mechanics and devised a 
number of hydraulic and pneumatic machines — the 
siphon, the hand fire-engine, and the force pump being 
the most notable. His pupil, Hero, actually invented 
the steam engine — a sort of steam turbine without 
piston or cylinder. This was about 200 B. C. and the 
discovery was forgotten for more than twenty cen- 
turies. This same Hero also developed a hot-air 
engine which he used to open and close the doors of a 
temple and which the common people thought to be 
a miracle. Archimedes founded the science of hydro- 
statics, worked out the idea of specific gravity, 
invented the screw pump, the endless screw, a huge 
crane for lifting ships out of the water, and various 
hydraulic and compressed-air machines. This list 
sounds very modern, as if it were attributing to 
ancient philosophers the work of Galileo, Newton, 
Herschel, Faraday, Watt, and Parsons. For cen- 
turies these great triumphs of mind were forgotten 
because the men who conceived them had not the 
will to execute them and adapt them to the service 
of mankind. 

We have already stated that the powers and facul- 
ties of mind and body will be useless unless placed 
under the direction of a strong, commanding will, and 



98 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FR ATERNITY 

the question immediately arises whether this all- 
essential quality of will can be cultivated. What is 
the will ? Nothing is harder to define ; probably it is 
impossible of definition. It is the force of person- 
ality, the spring of all action, the deciding, impelling, 
controlling quality of our nature. In the last analysis 
it is the will that determines whether a man born on a 
farm shall be a farmer or a financier, whether a child 
born in the city slums shall be a tramp or a scientist, 
whether a life that began in poverty shall end in a 
poorhouse or a palace. Your will can make you think 
as it can make you act, and can determine the line of 
your thought. Schools and colleges cannot make a 
scholar but will can, even where there are no schools 
and colleges available. 

Is the power of volition, this will, born with us and 
fully developed at birth, or is it a quality which has the 
possibilities of growth, as brain or muscle has? We 
believe emphatically that the will can be cultivated. 
The history of numberless prominent and successful 
men who were dunces in boyhood and lazy in early 
manhood but who subsequently became famous or 
wealthy or powerful amply proves our position. And 
as the exercise of will is essential to CONCENTRA- 
TION and CONCENTRATION is essential to suc- 
cess in any occupation we shall try to outline a way 
in which the will may be strengthened and its power 
increased. 

The first evidence of a weak will is noticeable in 
the shirking or evasion of unpleasant things. As 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 99 

soon as we become aware of this tendency we must 
lay down certain rules of action to which we should 
adhere with unvarying regularity. For instance, 
most men have a physical dislike of cold water. Sup- 
posing we "fight it out on that line if it takes all 
summer" and all winter too. We lay down the law 
that we will take a cold bath every morning. The 
mere thought may be appalling at first. To make 
our resolution surer we fill the bathtub on the pre- 
ceding night. The first morning it is agony, but we 
survive. With the brisk rubbing there comes the 
grateful glow of the reaction. The following morn- 
ing we are fortified with the one successful experiment 
and force ourselves again to pass through the ordeal. 
Thus we go along for a month ; each morning requires 
a new exercise of the will but each day begins with a 
decisive victory. And there is something in a local 
victory which makes for a general triumph. Later 
in the day we find a situation from which we shrink; 
the bath is in our minds and we say "Do this too!" 
In course of time the will gets the habit of mastery, 
dislikes to be thwarted, and establishes a long line of 
minor conquests which make the issue inevitable 
when the critical battle ground is reached upon which 
our success or failure for life is to be determined. 

Then perhaps we may have to fight it out along the 
negative line also. Indulgence of appetite may be 
presaging our ultimate defeat. It needs a decisive 
exercise of the will to deny ourselves the enjoyment 
of that which we crave. We determine upon a course 

tOFC 



100 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

of discipline. Perhaps we decide that we will give 
up coffee at breakfast — not upon any physical grounds, 
but simply as an exercise of the will. A few mornings 
of denial confirm the will and strengthen it. After 
that, with the vigor of a lesser victory inspiriting the 
will, we determine to give up alcoholic drinks, and 
succeed in the attempt. Later we enlarge the domain 
of the will and surrender other forms of pleasure that 
are detrimental to our best progress and in due time 
we find that the once feeble will has risen to a place 
of mastery and dominion in our lives and is quite 
capable of determining what our future shall be. 
Thenceforth the more difficult tasks of life are 
attempted and worthily achieved and we rejoice that 
the disciplined and developed will has lifted us out 
of the low levels of life onto the plain of distinguished 
accomplishment. So without doubt experience 
proves that will-power can be cultivated by any one, 
and, unless it is so cultivated and strengthened, life 
will be a series of ever-deepening discouragements and 
failures. 



The will determines the direc- 
The Will Holding tion and the persistency of our 

the Forces of Your „ -n -L L t\ * r\ 

« . CA ,., efforts. Robert Dale Owen con- 

Nature Steadily 

Upon One Object fessed that his life was a failure 
because it lacked a steady and 
resolute and well-defined purpose. " Whoever is 
resolved to excel in painting, or indeed in any other 
art," said Sir Joshua Reynolds, "must bring all his 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 101 

mind to bear upon that one object from the moment 
that he rises till he goes to bed." Aristotle admitted 
that he owed his vast acquirements to his having 
command over his mind, to his ability to hold his 
attention steadily to a given object — rather than to 
any natural superiority of intellect. Sir William 
Hamilton said that "the difference between an ordi- 
nary mind and the mind of Newton consists primarily 
in this, that the one is capable of a more continuous 
attention than the other — that a Newton is able, 
without fatigue, to connect inference with inference 
in one long series toward a determined end ; while the 
man of inferior capacity is soon obliged to break, or 
let fall, the thread which he has begun to spin." And 
Newton himself acknowledged that he owed all he 
won to "patient, concentrated thought." 

Life is so brief that there is not time for many 
changes of occupation. Each such change involves 
a number of readjustments, the bringing into promi- 
nence of faculties and energies hitherto unused or 
partially engaged, thus implying a new system of 
discipline, and every change necessitates a certain 
waste of ability already acquired. Happy indeed is 
the man who knows his line of work, who has settled 
the question of the direction of his efforts! He loses 
no time in wavering and irresolution and can give his 
entire self to the realization of his well-defined 
purpose. 



102 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

Two things are fatal to success 
The Accomplish- _ vaci ii at ion and drifting. John 
ment of a Definite _., 1 J 

Purpose Sherman, m a letter to a young 

man who believed himself to be a 
failure, said, "No ship ever reached its port by sailing 
for a dozen other ports at the same time. ,, " There is 
a limit," said Gladstone "to the work that can be got 
out of a human body or a human brain. He is a wise 
man who wastes no energy on pursuits for which he is 
not fitted; and he is wiser who, from among the things 
he can do well, chooses and resolutely follows the* 
best." Cecil Rhodes, the South African millionaire 
and statesman and the founder of the Rhodes Scholar- 
ships in Oxford University, said, "It took me fifteen 
years to get a mine, but I got it. Though my boat 
may be slow in the race, I know exactly what I am 
starting for." Edward Emerson Barnard began life 
as a photographer's boy, his work being to sit upon a 
roof and watch the exposure of photographic plates. 
While thus engaged his thoughts were upon the sky 
and the stars, and he determined to know all about 
them. Alone and unaided he struggled through such 
books as he could get upon astronomy, studied and 
mastered mathematics, scrimped and saved until able 
to purchase a small telescope, and finally, so great 
was his ambition, he worked his way through Van- 
derbilt University. Nothing swerved or daunted him, 
rebuffs from prominent astronomers who thought him 
only a precocious and conceited boy did not dis- 
hearten him, apparently insurmountable difficulties 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 103 

only served to stimulate his determination to 
know everything that could be known about the 
heavens. He graduated from the University in 1886 
and in less than twenty years found himself one of the 
foremost of the world's astronomers, the discoverer 
of the fifth satellite of Jupiter, and the recorder of 
more comets than any living man. In the end such 
well-directed resolution is bound to win fame, or 
power, or wealth, or whatever other goal the worker 
may have set before him. Field spent thirteen years 
in laying the Atlantic Cable, Webster gave thirty-six 
years to the compilation of his dictionary; Bancroft 
devoted twenty-six years to the writing of his " His- 
tory of the United States " ; it took James Watt thirty 
years to bring his condensing engine to perfection. 
"There is no road too long to the man who advances 
deliberately and without undue haste; there are no 
honors too distant to the man who prepares himself 
for them with patience/' said La Bruyere. 

Nothing worthy can be accomplished by the man 
who simply drifts. Thousands of life-failures may 
be thus accounted for every year — the men who 
never decide, only drift. They were born into the 
world without any conscious effort on their own part 
and they wish to continue to the end with just as 
much ease as at the beginning. So they dodge diffi- 
culties and evade responsibilities; nothing is so dis- 
tasteful to them as the act of decision, or so irksome 
as the spirit of determination. They drifted into 
school and out again ; they drifted into the occupation 



104 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. F RATERNITY 

that presented the fewest initial difficulties; they 
have drifted from job to job and city to city; they 
drift from pleasure to pleasure, from meal to meal, 
from drink to drink, from sleep to sleep. And most 
of them are languidly cursing the Creator and the 
constitution of the universe because things were not 
so ordered that they could drift into fame, or wealth, 
or honor, or power. The only hope for such men is 
that some event, or thought, or ambition, shall show 
them the fatality of their course and galvanize their 
wills before it is too late. 



No more striking illustration of 
The Need of failure as the result of lack of per- 

Infinite Patience sistence and CONCENTRATION 

and Tireless 

Persistency can ^ e f° un( i than that of Richard 

Trevithick. Trevithick was born 
in Cornwall, England, just ten years before George 
Stephenson. In early years he drifted about the 
mines, refusing to go to school and thus losing the 
discipline which application to study gives to the 
will. As he grew up he developed a most original 
mind, great mechanical skill, and the habit of industry. 
He preceded many well-known inventors by his novel 
plans and constructions, and showed a fertility and 
resourcefulness in all lines of engineering that was 
truly marvelous. He improved the Watt engine by 
doing away with the condenser and introducing a 
simple, effective, and economical direct high-pressure 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 105 

system. He also used for the first time a cylindrical 
wrought -iron boiler. In 1803 Trevithick constructed 
the first steam carriage and ran it successfully on a 
road for ninety miles. He then took it to London 
and won the admiration of Sir Humphry Davy and 
other distinguished scientists. But for some 
unknown reason he developed the scheme no farther, 
broke up the engine, and returned to Cornwall to 
resume ordinary mine-engineering. Later he built 
another engine which was really the first of all railroad 
locomotives. Its cylinder was four and three-quarters 
inches in diameter, and was placed horizontally. A big 
flywheel was geared through intermediates to the four 
propelling wheels, which were smooth-rimmed. It ran 
on iron rails, and under forty pounds steam pressure 
made five and one-half miles an hour drawing heavy 
loads, and was in every way an astonishing success. 
But instead of following up this success he went back 
to general engineering. In 1806 he undertook to 
ballast all ships leaving London by lifting mud from 
the bottom of the Thames with bucket -machines. 
Two years later he invented a means of discharging 
ships of their cargo, and stowing cargoes by machin- 
ery; and in 1809 he took out patents for constructing 
armored vessels by means of wrought-iron plates. 
About the same time he organized a company for 
tunneling the Thames in the busiest part of London, 
but, after excavating 1,100 feet, difficulties discouraged 
him and he gave up the project. This was followed 
by experiments in steamship construction and his 



106 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 



patents specify and describe, among other marvelous 
things, our modern screw propeller. Later he built 
a number of engines for pumping out abandoned 
silver mines in Peru, but the enterprise failed and he 
was left ragged and penniless in South America. In 
spite of all these brilliant achievements Trevithick's 
life is a record of missed possibilities, the story of 
ignoble failure through lack of patient persistence. 
One of his biographers speaks of this feature as "a 
trait of character that in the end ruined his life and 
deprived him of the honor and rewards that were his 
desert.' ' He died in 1833 so deeply in debt that he 
was buried by subscription raised among the men 
who had worked for him, and not even a simple slab 
marks the resting place of this great but vacillating 
inventor! 

The honors and rewards which might have gone to 
Trevithick went to George Stephenson. The story 
of Stephenson's early disadvantages and how he over- 
came them has already been told. It is sufficient to 
add, that, although Stephenson had no greater ability 
than his predecessor, he possessed the quality that 
made all his powers effective — a determined will. He 
was able to continue steadily, patiently, and per- 
sistently at a task or experiment until he settled the 
last doubt and convinced the world of its worth. In 
one year he traveled twenty thousand miles in a 
post chaise ; he employed a secretary who followed 
him about, and often wrote from twenty to forty 
letters a day — letters of technical detail, arguments 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 107 

for committees, reports for directors, and plans for 
improvement. On one occasion he dictated continu- 
ously for twelve hours on a subject involving the most 
difficult and intricate material. 

Alfried Krupp, who, next to Bismarck, did more 
to make modern German supremacy than any 
other man, may safely be called a pattern of 
CONCENTRATION. Dwight Goddard, in telling 
the story of Krupp 's struggle and achievement 
says that " Extraordinary application and dogged 
perseverance explain the success of Alfried 
Krupp. Many a life of promise has come to noth- 
ing from scattering its forces. Alfried Krupp sur- 
passed expectations by CONCENTRATION and 
perseverance.' ' When Alfried was fourteen years old 
his father died leaving as an inheritance a forge, a 
laborer's cottage, and the secret of making steel. The 
boy went to work immediately, impelled by a secret 
vow to succeed where his father had failed. "For 
twenty-five years he worked unremittingly, by day- 
light at the anvil and forge, by lamplight at his 
accounts and books. For years he could hardly pay 
the wages of his men, let alone any profit to himself. 
After twenty-five years the clouds of care began to 
break away, and henceforth success came in almost 
geometric progression — the marvel of the world." 
In 1826 when Krupp began his work he had two 
helpers but no tools. These he had to make himself. 
In 1832 he had ten workmen; in 1845 one hundred 
and twenty-two; in 1876, fifty years after his 



108 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

discouraging start, the Krupp works at Essen 
employed twenty-five thousand men. 

It is evident from such examples that success in 
modern industry and commerce demands special- 
ization. While it is true that a thousand doors of 
opportunity stand open, a man cannot pass through 
ten of them at once, nor even two. What is needed 
is not a vast amount of general information but a 
perfect grasp of specific knowledge, not the ability 
to do numerous things moderately well but to do 
one thing with superlative excellence. The student 
should understand this condition of success in modern 
life beyond 'all shadow of doubt. While on the 
threshold of his career he ought to become familiar 
with the laws of the great competition in which so 
many versatile and able men fail each year. If 
success lies in knowing one subject or occupation 
thoroughly, it is unwise to cover too much ground; 
it is better to narrow the field to a particular branch 
of a particular science or art, to master the determin- 
ing principles and their technical application, to be 
as familiar with every detail of the subject as one is 
with the alphabet. 

William Mathew's words on this subject are espe- 
cially worthy of careful consideration: " There is but 
one possible remedy for the inability to gather 
together the mental powers and concentrate them 
exclusively upon one object, and that is — CONCEN- 
TRATION. In other words, it is only by continued, 
strenuous efforts, repeated again and again, day after 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 109 

day, week after week, and month after month, that 
the ability can be acquired to fasten the mind on one 
subject, however abstract or knotty, to the exclusion 
of everything else. The process of obtaining this 
self-mastery — the complete command of one's mental 
powers — is a gradual one, its length varying with the 
mental constitution of each person ; but its acquisition 
is worth infinitely more than the utmost labor it ever 
costs. It is a process to which, however painful or 
protracted, every thinker worthy of the name, even 
the mightiest, has had to submit — not excepting 
Archimedes, who, at the capture of Syracuse, was so 
intent on his problem that he did not notice the 
hostile soldier who had entered his study. For- 
tunately there is no faculty of the mind that grows 
and strengthens more surely and inevitably by prac- 
tice than this power of attention — of continuous 
CONCENTRATION." 

The habit of CONCENTRA- 
Learn to Live for TIQN ^ stud ^ Qne of the best 

the Future Rather . J 

Than the Present investments a young man can 
make. It not only gives to him 
the immediate reward of knowledge, it also trains 
him for action, especially rapid action at those critical 
periods of after-life when everything depends upon 
mastering a situation thoroughly and swiftly. Napo- 
leon's CONCENTRATION while at school in Brienne 
was as phenomenal as during his subsequent career. 
"So great was his ardor for intellectual improvement 



110 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

that he considered every day as lost in which he had 
not made perceptible progress in knowledge. By 
this rigid mental discipline he acquired that won- 
derful power of CONCENTRATION by which he was 
ever enabled to simplify subjects the most difficult 
and complicated." Education is not a scheme to 
enable a man to live without effort ; it is a prelimi- 
nary discipline by means of which a man may do 
more and better work. 

As the decades pass the figure of Abraham Lincoln 
looms up greater and greater. Time is giving us the 
right perspective and each year makes him seem more 
of a miracle. Yet in sober truth no man ever had 
less of the miraculous in his history. His rise was 
not even sudden but by the slowest and most tedious 
gradation. Every step has been distinctly traced 
and there is not one of them which any other man 
might not have taken. Where he differed from other 
men was in the fact that he never stopped stepping 
until he reached the dizzy height of power and fame. 
It did not make him dizzy because he had ascended 
so slowly. 

He began absolutely at the bottom — there was not 
even a step to the front door of the cabin in which he 
was born ; until he was twenty-one not a board sepa- 
rated his feet from mother earth. No artificial con- 
trivances of civilization aided his advance ; he pushed 
himself along by sheer force of elemental qualities. 
Social jack-screws and financial derricks may lift a 
little man to a certain altitude, but they have their 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 111 

limits. Lincoln did not need them. Had they been 
at his command they might have made him a figure 
but they could not make him a force. 

When Lincoln stood on the steps of the Capitol in 
1865 and delivered his second Inaugural Address he 
was the embodiment of forty-six years of slowly 
accumulated habits. The world soon rang with 
applause for the wise and prophetic speech, and the 
London " Times" said the Inaugural was the greatest 
state paper of the century. The flawless logic and 
the faultless phrase, whence came they? According 
to his own account, Lincoln went to school "by 
littles"; "in all it did not amount to more than a 
year." And what teachers they were in those days! 
Scarcely one of them could go beyond "readin', 
writin', and cipherin' to the rule of three." Such a 
curriculum was not likely to lead to "the greatest 
state paper of the century," such a school was hardly 
planned for the making of a President. We must find 
the secret elsewhere. It is here — Lincoln developed 
the Study Habit! But the Study Habit implies 
patient and persistent CONCENTRATION, and the 
mastering of one's moods. 

Shut off from the schools and colleges, Lincoln read 
and studied every book he could find. His father's 
little library was pitifully small, so he borrowed from 
far and wide. He once told a friend that he "read 
through every book he had ever heard of in that 
country, for a circuit of fifty miles." With nothing 
but a turkey-buzzard pen and home-made ink he 



112 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

made a careful synopsis or copied long extracts from 
everything he read. These he read over and over 
until committed to memory. Shingles, boards, 
shovels, doors, served as notebooks when he ran 
short of paper. He always kept a book in the crack 
of the logs near his rough bed, ready to seize the 
moment he awoke in the morning. At night he made 
use of the fire on the hearth for light and studied long 
after the other members of the family were fast 
asleep. He carried books with him wherever he went, 
valued every spare moment as an opportunity for 
reading, even chose his occupations with a view to 
the chances they offered for study. 

Difficulties could not daunt a man who early in 
life had cultivated such a habit. When Lincoln began 
to study law he had to tramp twenty miles every time 
he wanted a law book. In doing so he would read 
and digest about forty pages each trip. He never 
allowed the subject to slip from his mind; when 
manual labor made it impossible for him to be read- 
ing he would recite aloud what he had last read and 
fix it forever in his mind. Twenty years after this 
time, when he was an acknowledged leader of the 
Illinois bar, he gave the following advice to a young 
man who wished to become a lawyer: "Get books, 
and read and study them carefully. Begin with 
Blackstone's 'Commentaries,' and after reading 
carefully through, say twice, take up Chitty's 'Plead- 
ings,' Greenleafs 'Evidence/ and Story's 'Equity,' 
in succession. Work, work, work, is the main thing." 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 113 

The habit of focusing every power of the brain upon 
one occupation is the key to successful scholarship. 
One who gives only a part of his mind masters only a 
part of the subject. When Lincoln learned anything 
it was his for all time; he never had to go back to 
verify impressions; the facts and principles, even the 
very words, were fixed in his memory forever. CON- 
CENTRATION is the only way to acquire thorough- 
ness. 

At the age of twenty -four Lincoln saw that there 
was not much of a future in general storekeeping. He 
was offered the position of deputy county surveyor. 
The only difficulty in the way of accepting was that 
he knew absolutely nothing about surveying. But 
what did such a trivial obstacle amount to? He 
borrowed Flint and Gibson's treatise on the subject 
and bent his will to the task of mastering it. He 
worked as if his temporal and eternal well being 
depended upon the effort; everything else was ban- 
ished: friends, pleasures, and food were almost for- 
gotten; day and night he kept at it, denying himself 
sleep, until he was pale and haggard and the neighbors 
expostulated. In six weeks he had mastered every 
branch of the subject upon which he could get any 
information, and reported for work. No wonder he 
was a good surveyor. One of his biographers says: 
"Lincoln's surveys had the extraordinary merit of 
being correct. His verdict was invariably the end of 
any dispute, so general was the confidence in his 
honesty and skill." 



114 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

While keeping his grocery store in New Salem, 
Illinois, Lincoln bought a barrel of old household stuff 
for fifty cents. In it he found Blackstone's "Com- 
mentaries." He began to study them. Speaking of 
it in after life he said: "The more I read the more 
intensely interested I became. Never in my life 
was my mind so thoroughly absorbed. I read until 
I devoured them." That CONCENTRATION was 
the foundation of his success as a lawyer. 

One day while still a law student in Springfield, 
Lincoln found he did not understand the meaning of 
the word 'demonstrate.' He told the story himself: 
"At last, I said, 'Lincoln, you can never make a 
lawyer if you do not understand what demonstrate 
means,' and I left my situation at Springfield, went 
home to my father's house and stayed there until I 
could give any proposition in the six books of Euclid 
at sight. I then- found out what 'demonstrate' 
meant, and went back to my law studies." 



Having learned the inestimable 
Learn to Master ains and the loft pos i t ions that 

Your Moods, to « . £ • , * 

s jy. !. result from persistent or concen- 

Temptations trated effort we are doubtless con- 

vinced that hardly any price is too 
great for the realization of such an end. Yet there 
are times when an inherited inclination or an acquired 
taste threatens to overthrow our purpose. At such 
a moment we must summon our sternest resolution 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 115 

and act toward the tempting disposition as though it 
were a traitor about to sell us to the enemy. No 
margin of hesitation or leniency must be allowed. We 
must put the will in immediate command and force 
every desire, appetite, wish, and emotion into uncon- 
ditional obedience, and then in the language of 
General Grant "we must fight it out along that line 
if it takes all summer." 



Self-Reliance 



SI 


Self-Reliance 


m 



It is probable that many a man will agree heartily 
with all that has been said in the preceding chapters 
and yet will hesitate to apply it to himself. He will 
admit that the opportunities of life are multitudinous 
and real, and that in some form and at some time they 
present themselves to every one; he will agree that 
bad habits can be broken and good habits cultivated, 
if one has sufficient incentive and determination; he 
will readily consent to all that has been said of the 
power of Industry and how indispensable work is to 
any form of achievement; he will concede that Con- 
centration is necessary to the winning of any worthy 
goal, whether in the world of study, or of commerce, 
or of science; but — and here he hesitates — he cannot 
persuade himself that the fruits of these wonderful 
accomplishments are for him. Others may win dis- 
tinguished positions, others may amass great fortunes, 
others may lay the world under obligation for valu- 
able inventions, others may be crowned with success 
and be pointed out as having done something well 
worth doing, but so far as he himself is concerned 
Nature has consigned him to a life of inconspicuous 
drudgery, or of meager attainment, or of constant 
struggle to ward off complete failure. The one thing 
such a man lacks is SELF-RELIANCE. If he can 
once be made to see and feel that he is a member of 

119 



120 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

the class which he admires and envies, that success 
belongs as much to him as it does to others by inalien- 
able right, that he is capable of realizing far greater 
things than he has ever dreamed possible, then he 
will rouse himself and insist upon obtaining whatever 
is within his reach. If once satisfied that he can, then 
he will. At present it is not the absence of desire, or 
ability, or willingness, but an absence of belief in 
himself, a lack of confidence in his personal qualifica- 
tion. If he can be persuaded into a firm faith in 
himself, then the greatest battle of all is won, and 
whatever may come later in life will be only skirmishes 
while taking possession of his own domain. 



Probably there are thousands 
Have Faith in r i 1 , 1 

of boys and young men m the 

schools and colleges, in the fields, 
factories, offices, and shops of the world, capable of 
the very highest achievement, able to do things as 
great and valuable as any that have already been 
done, but who cannot bring themselves to launch out 
on their own behalf. In this sense they are lost. 
The writer was once fishing for trout in a river flowing 
through a sparsely populated country. He and his 
companion were suddenly stopped by a waterfall 
having a drop of about fifty feet. One of the sports- 
men said, " What a shame this river is lost." " Lost ! " 
echoed the other in a tone of surprise; "Lost! How 
can the river be lost ? It is right here now and has 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 121 

been here for ages." "Yes," responded the first 
speaker, "but it is lost because it is not used. There 
is enough power running to waste in these falls to 
make a great industrial city." In exactly the same 
way multitudes of men are lost to themselves and lost 
to the advancing interests of civilization by failing to 
use themselves to their full advantage. They are 
doing little things when they might be doing great 
things, they are letting forces run to waste which are 
supremely valuable and by which they could accom- 
plish astounding results. They need to do some 
prospecting among their own powers and then, when 
the assay turns out to be surprisingly high, they need 
the courage to work the vein. If it were possible to 
take an X-ray picture of our powers and faculties, 
every one of us would realize that there has never 
been any danger of overestimating his possibilities. 
We should then see that the powers we possess are 
exactly the same in number as those possessed by the 
greatest man of this or any other age, and that the 
only difference lies in the extent of their individual 
or total development. All eyes are practically alike, 
only some are developed and some are not. The 
artist or the astronomer sees more than the laborer 
because he has trained and disciplined his sight by 
careful and constant use. But such an X-ray pic- 
ture would reveal something far more astounding; 
namely, that the faculties and powers which seem to 
us to be fulfilling their functions very creditably are 
capable of doing infinitely more. There are vast 



122 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

unused resources within us ; we have drawn only upon 
the surface — upon the qualities that could be most 
easily employed, while down below are great untapped 
reserves. It is such a belief as this that makes men 
SELF-RELIANT. 

"My success has always turned upon one maxim,' ' 
said Nathan Rothschild. "I said, 'I can do what 
another man can/ and so I am a match for all the 
rest of them." Ruskin says, "All great men not only 
know their business, but usually know that they 
know it; and they are not only right in their main 
opinions, but they usually know that they are right 
in them/' When James Gordon Bennett sent 
Stanley to find Livingstone, he did not ask Stanley 
if he thought he could find him, he simply furnished 
the money. And Stanley started for the unexplored 
continent without a question, saying, "If Bennett 
wants me to find Livingstone I can find him, alive or 
dead." Galileo heard that a Dutchman had made 
and given to Count Maurice of Nassau a curious 
instrument by means of which distant objects were 
made to appear as near; and this was all the rumor 
stated. But it was enough for Galileo; he believed 
he could do what any one else had done. He imme- 
diately set to work to find out the principle upon 
which the new discovery was based and very soon 
decided that it was by an arrangement of spherical 
glasses. In the course of two or three days he pre- 
sented a telescope to the Senate of Venice with an 
extended memoir upon its importance and value. 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 123 

When Lincoln struck out for himself in 1830 he had 
no money, no trade, no profession, no social influence; 
but he had what was better than any of these, 
SELF-RELIANCE. He heard a candidate for office 
make a public speech, and said, "I can make a better 
speech than that." Thereupon, he decided upon a 
political career. "I have talked to great men," he 
remarked, "and I do not see how they differ from 
others." His Self -Reliance, however, was not self- 
conceit. He sought the advice of the local school- 
master, who said, " If you are going before the public 
you ought to study grammar." There was only one 
book on the subject in the neighborhood, so he 
immediately tramped the six miles to the home of 
its owner, borrowed it, and in a few weeks had 
mastered the contents of Kirkham's 'Grammar.' 
"Well," said Lincoln, "if that's what they call a 
science, I think Til go at another." No sooner was 
the task over than he announced himself a candidate 
for the General Assembly of Illinois. 

Some time after Lincoln had achieved considerable 
success as a lawyer, he was engaged upon an impor- 
tant case in Cincinnati, in which he found himself 
associated with men of high training — college gradu- 
ates, equipped with the culture of the more developed 
East. After the trial he said to a friend: "Emerson, 
I am going home to study law." "Why," Emerson 
exclaimed, "Mr. Lincoln, you stand at the head of 
the bar in Illinois now ! What are you talking about ?" 
"Ah, yes," he said, "I do occupy a good position 



124 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

there, and I think I can get along with the way things 
are done there now. But these college-trained men, 
who have devoted their whole lives to study, are 
coming West, don't you see? And they study their 
cases as we never do. They have got as far as Cin- 
cinnati now. They will soon be in Illinois. I am 
going home to study law! I am as good as any of 
them, and when they get out to Illinois I will be 
ready for them." 

"In battle or business, whatever the game, 
In law or in love, it's ever the same; 
In your struggle for power, or scramble for pelf, 
Let this be your motto: Rely on yourself." 

Nearly all great careers can 
Capacity is Not to show an unsucceS sful or meager 
be Estimated by - 1 „ .,- 

What We Have beginning. Sydney Smith writes: 

Done " Generally speaking, the life of all 

truly great men has been a life of 
intense and incessant labor. They have commonly 
passed the first half of life in the gross darkness of 
indigent humility — overlooked, mistaken, condemned 
by weaker men — thinking while others slept, reading 
while others rioted, feeling something within that 
told them they should not always be kept down 
among the dregs of the world. And then, when their 
time has come, and some little accident has given 
them their first occasion, they have burst out into the 
light and glory of public life, rich with the spoils of 
time, and mighty in all the labors and struggles of the 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 125 

mind." Henry Wilson began life as a farm boy and 
continued to work like a slave until twenty-one years 
of age, but he felt great stirrings within him and had 
the courage to believe that he was capable of larger 
things. While still working on the farm he managed 
to read more than a thousand books borrowed in the 
neighborhood, and studied chiefly by firelight. Later 
he became a shoemaker and passed from that to 
school-teaching. After years of almost incredible 
toil and privation, he reached the Massachusetts 
Legislature, served the Commonwealth w T ith marked 
ability, and was sent to the United States Senate. 
Eighteen years later he was elected to the Vice- 
Presidency. James Watt, the inventor of the steam 
engine, suffered acutely from poverty and hardship 
in his early years. At fifteen he was vainly walk- 
ing the streets of London in search of work; later he 
did odd jobs around Glasgow University and during 
his spare time experimented with any machinery he 
could find. When engrossed with his idea of steam 
pressure, he actually suffered for want of food, his 
friends tried to dissuade him from further wasteful 
experiments, and ill health frequently prostrated 
him. But nothing could daunt him; he felt himself 
able to realize his great plans, if only health would 
hold out long enough. In the financial world, the 
immensely rich men like Astor, Vanderbilt, Peabody, 
Rockefeller, Carnegie, all knew the pinch of poverty, 
and learned the value of money through earning 
their first dollar by hard and humble work. 



126 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

Very many of the world's most distinguished men 
did not succeed until middle life was reached. In 
some instances long years of grinding apprenticeship 
were necessary to cultivate the faculties; in other 
cases, the men were not aware that they had great 
powers locked up in their nature, until a sudden 
emergency made an unusual draught upon their 
resources and thus revealed the unsuspected possi- 
bilities; here and there we find an example of slow 
development as the result of an early mistake — the 
adoption of an unsuitable profession or business, for 
instance. At forty years of age Ulysses S. Grant was 
a failure as a real-estate dealer. Three of America's 
greatest practical benefactors were artists: Fulton, 
the inventor of the steamboat was a creditable 
painter, but his powers were stronger along the 
mechanical line ; Morse, the man who made telegraphy 
practicable, actually won a certain fame with his 
brush before turning his attention to scientific pur- 
suits; Alvan Clark was thirty-nine when he dropped 
portrait-painting to manufacture telescopes. Sir 
Christopher Wren, the architect of St. Paul's Cathe- 
dral, London, was a professor of astronomy; all he 
knew of architecture he taught himself, and when 
the great fire of London swept away the entire center 
of the city, Wren submitted plans for the rebuilding 
of the Cathedral, which were accepted, he himself 
superintending the work of construction during the 
thirty years necessary to its completion. Professor 
Benedict, a teacher of Latin, heard the click of an 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 127 

experimental typewriter and instantly realizing the 
possibilities of the invention, threw down his Latin 
grammar and began to manufacture the Remington 
machine. Alexander Graham Bell, the successful 
adapter of the telephone to practical use, whereby 
he made an immense fortune, was a teacher in a 
deaf-and-dumb institution, when his private studies 
in electricity and telegraphy opened his eyes to the 
possibility of speaking through a wire. 

To measure the possibilities of life by what we have 
already accomplished implies an unworthy and an 
incomplete conception of ourselves. The science 
which deals with man's inner life, his powers, facul- 
ties, and senses — Psychology — assures us that there 
are large strata of energy, deep in our nature, upon 
which we have not yet drawn. The latest description 
of this condition is by Professor William James, of 
Harvard University: " It is evident that our organism 
has stored-up reserves of energy that are ordina- 
rily not called upon: deeper and deeper strata of 
combustible or explosible material, discontinuously 
arranged, but ready for use by any one who probes 
so deep, and repairing themselves by rest as do the 
superficial strata. Most of us continue living unneces- 
sarily near our surface Of course, there 

are limits: the trees don't grow into the sky. But 
the plain fact remains that men the world over 
possess amounts of resource, which only very excep- 
tional individuals push to their extremes of use. 
But the very same individual, pushing his energies 



128 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

to their extreme, may in a vast number of cases keep 
the pace up day after day, and find no 'reaction' of 
a bad sort, so long as decent hygienic conditions are 
preserved." Which simply means that a man is 
much larger than he thinks himself to be, that he is 
capable of doing more than he has ever dreamed of 
attempting, and that, having started doing more, 
he can continue doing it indefinitely. Such a belief 
as this will create in any man the habit of SELF- 
RELIANCE : he will believe he is able to do things 
before he tries to do them, and he will try constantly 
to do greater things because he believes he is able 
to accomplish them. 

Let us trust our instincts. When 

xtt \ t, 16V we become aware of these elements 
We Can Do 

of personal strength let us say to 

ourselves, "They are there to be used." Our past 
achievements may be too small to inspire or guide us, 
but nevertheless we may deliberately choose a much 
more difficult task and attempt it with confidence. 
The past must not be allowed to hamper or block 
our future. When Bernard Palissy reached the age 
of thirty-two, he had accomplished nothing of note 
but was earning a comfortable living for himself and 
family by making church windows and acting as a 
land surveyor. One day he saw an exquisitely 
enameled Italian vase and the vision haunted him. 
The art of enameling had been forgotten; his own 
country, France, was producing nothing in that 



IDEALS OF TH E I. C. S. FRATERNITY 129 

line. Palissy finally determined that he would learn 
how to enamel and make vases as beautiful as the 
one he had seen. He believed he could; he said he 
would, or die in the attempt. During the weary 
years that followed, he was ever saying to himself: 
"If I find out the secrets of pottery, my wife and 
children will live in plenty. Now it is starvation — 
by and by it shall be wealth and fame." Palissy 
has himself told the story of the sixteen years of 
terrible struggle and privation before he succeeded: 
"I had no means of learning the art of pottery in 
any shop. I began to search for enamels without 
knowing of what they were composed, as a man 
gropes his way in the dark. I pounded all the mate- 
rials I could think of. I bought a quantity of earthen 
pots and, breaking them to pieces, I covered them 
with the substances I had ground, making a note of 
the drugs I had used in each ; then having built a 
furnace, I put these pieces to bake, to see if my drugs 
would give any color. When I had spent several 
years in these attempts I again bought earthen 
vessels and, having broken them up, covered three or 
four hundred of the pieces with experimental enamels 
and carried them to a pottery, asking the potters to 
allow me to bake them. There was found one of 
these samples which became melted in four hours, 
which gave me such joy that I thought I had then 
discovered the perfection of white enamel." The 
end was in sight but still a great way off. Many 
attempts were destined to fail before his beautiful 



130 I DEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERN ITY 

white enamel was brought to perfection. The 
family was on the verge of utter starvation; six of 
his children died — primarily of starvation, it was 
believed at the time ; his wife was in rags and pleaded 
piteously for him to desist. But Palissy believed in 
himself so absolutely that he was sure the secret 
would be learned soon or late. We will allow him 
to continue his story: "My wood having run short, I 
was obliged to burn the stakes from my garden fence 
which, being consumed, I had to burn the tables and 
boards of my house in order to melt my second com- 
position. I was in such anguish as I cannot describe, 
for I was exhausted with the work and the heat of 
the furnace. It was more than a month since I had 
a dry shirt on. Then my neighbors laughed at me 
and reported about the town that I burned my 
flooring boards, and by such means they made me 
lose my credit and pass for a fool. Others said that 
I sought to coin false money, an evil report that made 
me shake in my shoes. I was in debt in several 
places No person helped me; on the con- 
trary, they laughed at me, saying, 'Serve him right 
to die of hunger, for he neglects his business.' ' At 
length he reached his final effort. After pulling his 
furnace to pieces to build it another way, all went 
finely for a time, when, in the midst of the baking, 
an explosion occurred which drove a lot of stone 
splinters into the half-baked enamel. His neighbors 
and creditors gathered around and wanted to buy the 
spoilt vases and medallions for a trifle. "But," says 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 131 

Palissy, " because this would have been a cheapening 
of my credit I completely destroyed the whole of 
the articles. I met with nothing but reproaches 

at home. My neighbors called me a madman 

The hope which supported me gave me such courage 
for my work that oftentimes, to entertain persons 
who came to see me, I would try to laugh, although 
within me I felt very sad." But at length success 
really came. Palissy pottery was bought up at any 
price, none too high for his exquisite handiwork. 
Nobles and kings came to watch him at work; wealth, 
honors, and fame were now his own. In the Louvre 
Museum, in Paris, one large room is entirely filled 
with Palissy ware. But this must not be forgotten: 
that through the long and terrific stuggle all he had 
to stand upon was SELF-RELIANCE, an unshake- 
able confidence in his own powers. 

It is SELF-RELIANCE that changes knowing into 
doing. Even when we are convinced that within us 
there is the capacity for better or larger results than 
we have yet realized, nothing but SELF-RELIANCE 
will lead us through the possible to the actual. 
Christopher Columbus believed that land lay to the 
west and that if he continued to sail westward he 
could not fail to reach it. The opinion of others 
counted for nothing — he believed in himself. In the 
log of that memorable voyage he wrote, day after 
day: "This day we sailed westward, which was our 
course/' Not even a mutinous crew could thwart 
such a confident soul. 



132 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

"Behind him lay the gray Azores, 

Behind the Gates of Hercules; 
Before him not the ghost of shores; 

Before him only shoreless seas. 
The good mate said: 'Now must we pray, 

For lo! the very stars are gone. 
Brave Adm'r'l, speak; what shall I say?' 

'Why, say: 'Sail on! sail on! and on!' " 

"'My men grow mutinous day by day; 

My men grow ghastly wan and weak.' 
The stout mate thought of home; a spray 

Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek. 
'What shall I say, brave Adm'r'l, say, 

If we sight naught but seas at dawn?' 
'Why, you shall say at break of day: 

'Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!' " 

"They sailed and sailed as winds might blow, 

Until at last the blanched mate said : 
'Why, now not even God would know 

Should I and all mv men fall dead. 
These very winds forget their way, 

For God from these dread seas is gone. 
Now speak, brave Adm'r'l; speak and say — f 

He said: 'Sail on! sail on! and on!' " 

"They sailed, They sailed. Then spake the mate: 

'This mad sea shows his teeth tonight. 
He curls his lip, he lies in wait, 

With lifted teeth, as if to bite! 
Brave Adm'r'l, say but one good word: 

What shall we do when hope is gone?' 
The words leapt like a flaming sword : 

'Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on! ' " 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 133 

It is not well to form the habit 
The Foundations of relying upon the judgment or 
of Future Success 1 M1 r ^ ~ • n 

Are Within You good-will of others. Occasionally 

the opinion of an expert may be 
very valuable, and once in a great while the gener- 
osity of our fellows may aid us over a difficult place; 
but in the main each man must live his own life in 
his own way, forming his judgment to the best of his 
ability, resting his claim to success upon his personal 
resources, relying upon his own powers to cleave a 
way through obstacles. A man may waste his most 
precious years in consulting relatives and friends 
about the advisability of a possible course. By the 
time he has collected and sifted the various opinions 
the opportunity will probably be gone forever. The 
really self-reliant man does not wait for private or 
public indorsement, but with a promptness born of 
self-confidence seizes the chance and turns it to 
advantage before it can slip away. In fact, much 
of the very best work of the world has been done in 
spite of discouragement and criticism, against the 
advice of friends and neighbors, and in the teeth of 
public opinion. The first typefounder and printer 
was supposed to have been a tool of Satan, and 
hence an outcast; as early as 1707 Doctor Papin con- 
structed a crude power-boat which was immediately 
seized by the sailors and broken up because its 
success might deprive them of work; Hargreaves had 
his spinning frame destroyed by an indignant mob ; 
Kay was mobbed for introducing his flying shuttle; 



134 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 



Arkwright was denounced as an enemy of the work- 
ingman because of his invention; Crampton was 
forced to hide his spinning-mule to save it from public 
wrath; Stephenson had to carry his railroad forward 
against violent popular prejudice ; Jacquard narrowly 
escaped with his life from the infuriated weavers who 
believed that his new loom would rob them of their 
occupation; Murdock's illuminating gas was openly 
ridiculed in the British Parliament; Fulton's steam- 
boat was the butt of ridicule and scorn; general 
animosity compelled Cartwright to abandon his 
power loom for years ; even the beneficent discovery 
of anaesthetics roused a storm of opposition among 
scientific men and Doctor Morton, the discoverer, died 
before the medical world universally admitted the 
value of his work. Each of these contributors to 
the progress of civilization had nothing but SELF- 
RELIANCE as inspiration and support. 

The history of Elias Howe, the inventor of the 
sewing-machine, reveals how SELF-RELIANCE can 
bring triumph even against tremendous odds. Howe 
had no early advantages: his entire schooling con- 
sisted of a few months under indifferent teachers. He 
began to work when not more than -six years old and 
was kept at menial tasks until the days of manhood. 
At the age of twenty-one he was married and earning 
a scant livelihood as a machinist. It was necessary 
for his wife to take in sewing that bread might be 
provided for the increasing family. The sight opened 
to Howe the possibility of making a machine which 



__ IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 135 

would sew rapidly, evenly, and cheaply. In his 
spare hours experiments were tried and to his confi- 
dent spirit the possibility became a certainty. Dur- 
ing the succeeding years he devoted his time to con- 
struction and the record is one of perpetual failure. 
He could rely upon no one for assistance. But in 
1845 his idea took a practical form and the first 
machine was made. Five hundred dollars would 
demonstrate the value of his invention, but for 
months he sought the capital in vain. At length 
an arrangement was made with a man named Fisher 
by which Howe and his family were allowed to live 
in a garret and the inventor was to be provided with 
tools and material for his experiment in return for a 
half-interest in the profits. But the project was full 
of difficulties and Fisher soon withdrew from the 
partnership. Howe was friendless, his children 
half starved, and his idea the object of ridicule and 
abuse. But he believed he could make a machine 
that would do -the laborious and slow work then 
accomplished by hand. When the novel machine 
was at last a fact — successful beyond all doubt — no 
one would purchase it. Howe turned to England, 
but was as unsuccessful as in America. He was 
forced to pawn his machine and patent rights and work 
his way back across the Atlantic as a cook's assistant. 
He landed in New York with less than a dollar in his 
pocket, his wife dying and his children starving. 
During all those dark years he never lost faith in 
himself, never doubted the value and ultimate 



136 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATER NITY 

triumph of his invention. In order to defend his 
patent Howe had to carry on innumerable law suits ; 
many large tailoring establishments were compelled 
by jealous hand-sewers to give up the use of the 
machine; Howe was looked upon as an enemy of the 
popular rights and insulted upon the streets. But 
in spite of hunger and calumny he persevered, never 
hesitating and never pausing, until fame and wealth 
were won. 



Whenever we believe we can 

ry ™.^ ^ • accomplish an end, or reach a 
Grow With Exercise r . . ' 

goal, or attain an ideal, we then 

possess the best assurance of success. The powers 
or abilities, which seem at first so inadequate that 
they excite ridicule, will grow with exercise until 
they are equal to any occasion. It may be laid 
down as a primary law that to believe we can succeed 
is the most important step toward success. The 
moment we have the courage to put our faculties 
into use they begin to expand and strengthen. M. W. 
Ray ens, the General Superintendent of the American 
District Telegraph Company, of New York, who 
directly controls fifteen hundred messenger boys, 
who has seen hundreds rise from such a lowly begin- 
ning to influential positions, and who was himself 
an uniformed messenger boy and rose step by step — 
gives as his deliberate verdict that "the absence of 
SELF-RELIANCE is one of the chief defects of 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 137 

character in young men and is largely the contribu- 
ting cause of their failure in the business world.' ' 
There comes a point in every life when a man must 
turn his face away from the temptation to be content 
with immediate and easy success and bid for some- 
thing greater. Daniel Webster, soon after he began 
the practice of law, was urged to accept an appoint- 
ment as clerk of the Court of Common Pleas, an 
office yielding an annual income of fifteen hundred 
dollars. He was exceedingly poor at the time and 
his family needed the money. His friends urged him 
to accept, it would place him in easy circumstances 
entirely free from risks. But he believed in himself, 
he thought himself capable of something far greater 
than a cozy clerkship, and he declined the offer. 
His acceptance would have given him immediate 
comfort, but it might have robbed the country of 
the inestimable services of one of its greatest lawyers 
and statesmen. 

At the age of thirty-six Cyrus W. Field had made 
enough money in the manufacture of paper to retire 
from business and life comfortably for the rest of his 
life. He could indulge his taste for art, literature, 
and travel. Then there came to him the dream of 
laying a telegraph cable between England and 
America. It was entirely an experiment and his 
friends advised against it; the general public derided 
such an idea. After considerable thought, Field 
said: "I believe I can do it!" The task involved 
the creation of new governmental relationships; 



138 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

an exhaustive study of ocean currents and sub- 
marine conditions; the building of a special ship 
for the purpose of paying out the cable; but, more 
difficult than any of these, the making of such a 
cable as would stand the terrible strain put upon it 
and yet delicate enough to carry an electric current 
for nearly three thousand miles without a break. 
Each item of the program was entirely new to 
Field, and indeed to every one; there was no expe- 
rience by which he could be guided. But he believed 
in himself, in the ability of his own powers to grapple 
with the difficulties and solve the problems. The 
gigantic experiment carried him across the ocean 
forty times; several times was the cable laid before 
it held and communication was established; Field's 
fortune was all swallowed up in the enterprise; his 
associates died or deserted him, Congress refused aid, 
he was often so ill and worn out that continuous work 
was impossible; the repeated failures made him a 
general laughing stock; the Civil War broke out and 
his Company became bankrupt and Field vainly tried 
to raise money for the enterprise by begging from 
door to door. Yet he never lost his SELF-RELIANCE , 
although he must have been haunted often by the 
fear and dread of ultimate failure. At a banquet 
given him by the New York Chamber of Commerce, 
to celebrate his final success, Field said: "It has been 
a long struggle. Nearly thirteen years of anxious 
watching and ceaseless toil. Often my heart has been 
ready to sink. Many times when wandering in the 



IDEALS OF THE I. C . S. FRATERNITY 139 

forests of Newfoundland in the pelting rain, or on 
the decks of ships on dark, stormy nights, alone and 
far from home, I have almost accused myself of 
madness and folly, to sacrifice the peace of my family 
and all the hopes of life for what might prove, after 
all, but a dream. I have seen my companions, one 
and another, falling by my side, and feared that I 
might not live to see the end. And yet one hope has 
led me on, and I have prayed that I might not taste 
of death till this work was accomplished.'* 

We believe it can be proved that not one notable 
or valuable thing in all the achievements of the world 
has been accomplished without a self -faith on the part 
of the worker which seemed to others conceit or mad- 
ness. The name of Samuel F. B. Morse is forever 
associated with the invention of the telegraph. 
But his first triumphs were in the field of art. He 
studied in London under the celebrated West and at 
an incredibly early age was winning medals and 
praise for original work. Returning home he was. 
soon recognized as a painter of marked ability, and 
within ten years was elected president of the " National 
Academy of Design," an office which he continued to 
hold for the next sixteen years. Fame and an easy 
fortune were assured when, at about forty years of 
age, Morse took up the idea of communicating over 
long distances by means of an electric current trans- 
mitted through a wire. It needed a vast amount of 
courage to abandon a familiar and lucrative field for 
an entirely dissimilar and untried occupation. But if 



140 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

Morse possessed any one quality to an unusual degree 
it was wSELF-RELIANCE. The change brought a 
period of struggle and pain, but what were these 
when viewed in the splendor of the final success? 
There were years of experimentation, when even 
food was scarce. In speaking of that period, Morse 
said: "Indeed, so straitened were my circumstances 
that, in order to save time to carry out my invention 
and to economize my scanty means, I had for many 
years lodged and eaten in my studio, procuring food 
in small quantities from some grocery and preparing 
it myself. To conceal from my friends the stinted 
manner in which I lived, I was in the habit of bringing 
my food to my room in the evenings, and this was my 
mode of life for many years." The term ''studio'' is 
rather a misuse of language, for the room in which 
the great inventor carried on his work was a fifth- 
story garret and the food was mainly cheap crackers 
and tea. Ten years after finishing his first machine 
an application was made to Congress for an appro- 
priation to test the value of the telegraph on behalf 
of the government. The very idea was ridiculed 
by all, from the Speaker to the youngest Representa- 
tive. The Senate was a little more receptive and made 
a grudging appropriation. After demonstration had 
proved the feasibility of the telegraph, Morse could 
find scarcely a man who believed in its commercial 
value, and no one would invest money in it. The 
government refused to purchase it or to appropriate 
anything for further experiments. There were years 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 141 

more of misrepresentation and public neglect, but 
at length the tide turned and Morse found himself 
honored in all lands as one of the greatest men of 
the age. 

Another success story in which SELF-RELIANCE 
stands forth as the most conspicuous feature is that 
of Charles Goodyear. India rubber, as a raw product, 
had been known for more than a hundred years before 
Goodyear undertook to put it to practical use. Its 
only value seems to have been as an eraser of pencil 
marks. Charles Goodyear was a Philadelphia hard- 
ware merchant when he began to experiment with 
rubber, and he struggled for twenty-five years in 
misery and against recurring failure to discover a 
means of imparting durability to rubber goods without 
losing the flexibility of the material. He was thirty- 
five years old, in feeble health, and with a young 
family to support. The experiments soon brought 
him face to face with starvation, he was arrested and 
imprisoned for debt, his friends deserted him and 
called him a lunatic. But he believed the end he 
desired could be reached — the making of rubber into 
a commercial commodity; and he believed he could 
do it. He thought that there must be some substance 
which, mixed with the gum, would render it durable, 
and he determined to try everything he could obtain 
until he found it. In the course of the tests he was 
forced to pawn or sell every article he possessed, 
even his wife's trinkets. A hundred times in the 
course of the dreary years he seemed on the point of 



142 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

succeeding, yet failed. Men laughed and called 
him a maniac; they openly jeered at him on the 
street; they tried to reason him out of his purpose. 
But he never once lost confidence in his ability to 
succeed. At last the discovery was made — by 
accident so some said, but really by pluck and SELF- 
RELIANCE. He had no sooner started to manufac- 
ture rubber goods than a financial panic swept every- 
thing away — except his self-faith. Friends, relatives, 
and even his wife all demanded that he should aban- 
don his dreams, yet he persisted; and now, wherever 
rubber is used in any form, the name of Charles 
Goodyear is honored. 

Benjamin Franklin stands out 
Courage to Use in history as a model of SELF- 

AWlities Ufal RELIANCE. The only resources 

he possessed were those stored 
within him by nature; he never asked for favors, he 
never formed the vicious habit of depending upon 
others to help him along.* "To be thrown upon one's 
own resources/' he wrote, "is to be cast into the very 
lap of Fortune, for our faculties then undergo a 
development and display an energy of which they 
were previously unsusceptible." It is certain that 
there is the capacity for good work in every one of 
us; all that we need is the courage to trust ourselves. 
When Napoleon was told that the Alps stood between 
him and the realization of his plans, he said, "There 
shall be no Alps!" Let a man look his difficulties 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. F RATERNITY 143 

squarely in the face and determine to overcome them, 
and though they be as high as mountains, they will 
melt away. The machinist in the shop looks with 
envious eyes at the position held by the superin- 
tendent ; between them is a space which can only be 
bridged by expert knowledge and technical pro- 
ficiency. The superintendent does not possess a 
single faculty or power that is not also possessed by 
the machinist, but those of the one are developed 
while those of the other are not. Yet there is no 
cause for discouragement. If a man has a faculty 
or a power in any degree, it can be immeasurably 
increased by exercise. If time be set aside for study 
and the will be allowed to command the nature, the 
difficulties can be overcome and level after level of 
efficiency will be. reached. Every step upward 
brings us to a platform from which greater things 
may be attempted. 

The foundation of all effective study will be found to 
be SELF-RELIANCE — men want to know because 
they are confident that they can do if once they 
possess the necessary equipment. This is why some 
men have made such desperate efforts to obtain an 
education. Neither poverty nor difficulty has been 
allowed to stand in their way. They have hoarded 
time as a miser hoards gold, snatching at every spare 
minute as an opportunity for gaining knowledge. 
Some men have formed the false idea that it is impos- 
sible to do brain work when the muscles are tired. 
It is a mistake to think that mental exercise is 



144 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

unusually exacting. Even ten hours of hard, continu- 
ous study under ordinary conditions, with good light 
and sufficient fresh air, will not tax the system nearly 
so much as one hour in a closely -packed, ill-ventilated 
theater or concert hall. When a firm determination 
has once led us to form the habit of study, the sense 
of irksomeness passes away, the student looks for- 
ward with eagerness to the glow of triumph which 
spreads over both the mind and body as the meaning 
of a law becomes clear or a difficult problem yields 
up its secret. As fast as we learn that we can do 
things, we want to do them. Each real step of 
progress creates the desire and the impulse for the 
next ; difficulties are looked upon as so many athletic 
events in which the mental powers may make new 
records; while all the time SELF-RELIANCE is urg- 
ing the toiler forward to claim what nature has fitted 
him to win. 

Conditions cannot arise which shall daunt such a 
man when he is once started. Every time he says, 
"I can," it is instantly followed by, "I will." 

That solid achievements can be won against the 
most discouraging odds has been demonstrated not 
once, but a thousand times. Elihu Burritt was a 
blacksmith's apprentice in New England. He deter- 
mined to obtain an education. At first his studies 
were all along practical lines, such as mathematics 
and the principles of surveying. Later he took up 
languages. When he was about half way through 
his apprenticeship he decided to learn Latin. In 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 145 

the evenings of one winter he read the iEneid of 
Virgil; and after going on for a while with Cicero 
and other Latin classics, he began to learn Greek. 
During the winter months he was obliged to spend 
every hour of daylight at the forge, and even in the 
summer his leisure minutes were few and far between. 
But he carried his Greek "Grammar" in his hat, 
and often found a chance, w r hile he was waiting for a 
large piece of iron to get hot, to open the book with 
his black fingers, and go through a pronoun, an 
adjective, or part of a verb, without being noticed 
by his fellow apprentices. In this way he soon 
learned all the principal languages of Europe, besides 
several Asiatic tongues, and he was known far and 
wide as "the learned blacksmith." A few lines 
from his private diary ought to act as a tonic upon any 
man who doubts whether anything of value can be 
accomplished under unfavorable conditions: 

"Monday, June 18: Headache; 40 lines Cuvier's 
'Theory of the Earth 1 ; 64 pages French; 11 hours* 
forging. 

"Tuesday, June 19: 60 lines Hebrew; 30 pages 
French; 10 pages Cuvier; 8 lines Syriac; 10 lines 
Danish; 10 lines Bohemian; 9 lines Polish; 15 names 
of stars; 10 hours' forging. 

"Wednesday, June 20: 25 lines Hebrew; 8 lines 
Syriac; 11 hours' forging.' ' 

Is it any wonder that this Self -Reliant blacksmith 
— working with his muscles by day and with his 
brain by night, filling every moment with a useful 



146 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

occupation — won international fame and a place 
among the great men of the earth ? 

The famous Scotch scientist, John Hunter, who 
made an anatomical collection which the English 
government bought for seventy-five thousand dollars, 
learned to read and write while working at the car- 
penter's bench. He believed it was in him to become 
a great, man and did not hesitate to say so. By 
sacrificing the amusements in which his friends 
wasted their time, by reducing the allowance of 
sleep to a minimum, he was able to place himself at 
the head of the medical profession in a few years, 
besides making the world his debtor for many remark- 
able discoveries. 

If a man firmly believes that he has the powers 
within him by which success can be won, nothing can 
keep him from doing his best to develop those powers. 
SELF-RELIANCE is the inspiration to self-educa- 
tion. "Others have succeeded who were once no 
better equipped, why not I?" is the language of the 
man who trusts himself. 

SELF-RELIANCE is not to be 
if R a / ° regarded as a transitory inspiration, 

a sudden but fleeting exhibition of 
nerve ; it is rather the steady habit of always think- 
ing of one's self as competent, as able to make 
dreams and desires actual and real by personal 
effort. It is a settled conviction that remains with 
a man through his reverses and disappointments, 



ID EALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 147 

constantly encouraging him to try again, to persist 
in spite of everything. The experience of one of 
America's most successful mine developers, as told 
in "The Consolidated Encyclopedic Library," should 
stimulate many a discouraged or hesitating man 
to fresh endeavor: 

"Adolph Sutro came from Germany to America in 
1850 and set his face toward the West. He was 
then a youth of twenty, with a special education in 
mineralogy and mining engineering. He mined for 
ten years in California, but with meager returns, and 
with success always just beyond his reach. Finally 
he took to keeping a small tobacco store, the pro- 
ceeds from which barely sufficed to bar the wolf from 
the door. His neighbors set him down as a failure, 
but he refused to agree with them. Instead, he 
studied his books on mining in his leisure hours, and 
waited for his opportunity. It came to him in 1864. 
The men who had control of the mines of the "Corn- 
stock" lode had gone so deep into the rocks with their 
shafts that the cost of keeping them free from the 
incoming waters exceeded the value of their output. 
Sutro visited the 'Comstock' and closely examined 
the shape of the ore-yielding mountain. He decided, 
after several weeks' inspection, that the plan he had 
half formed was feasible, and he went to work at it. 
His scheme was to bore a hole under the mountain to 
the lowest level of the mines, and let the water, the 
pumping of which was so costly, drain away of its own 
accord. It would cost much money to bore such a 



148 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

hole, but the profit from it, to its projector's thinking, . 
would be certain, for the owners of the mines would 
gladly pay well for its use as a drain. Sutro's 
acquaintances laughed at his plans, but their skepti- 
cism did not trouble him, and ere long he was receiv- 
ing subscriptions to the stock of his quickly-organ- 
ized tunnel company. When he had $100,000 in hand 
he set men and drills and steam engines at work on 
the tunnel. Years elapsed, however, before the last 
piece of rock was chipped out of the hole; but the 
early struggle for working capital was as nothing to 
the fight which came in 1870. Sutro in his contest 
had against him the Bank of California, nearly the 
entire delegation in Congress from the Pacific Coast, 
and the firms that worked the mines and mills. 
Odds of this sort would have discouraged and crushed 
another man, and Sutro would have avoided the fight 
if he could have done so, but to shrink then meant 
ruin. His ready money and all he could borrow had 
been absorbed, and his only available resource was a 
small piece of real estate. He sold this for $350 
and with the proceeds journeyed to Washington, 
where a bill had been introduced in Congress, the 
passage of which would have rendered the tunnel 

of no value to its projector The bill failed 

of passage, after a long and desperate struggle, and 
Sutro returned triumphant to Nevada. The comple- 
tion of the tunnel nine years later made him a many- 
times millionaire.' ' 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 149 

By failing to understand their 
Self-Distrust is the own resources men f orm the habit 

F Uure of regarding themselves as inferior. 

They grow to think of themselves 
as fated to be failures, and that thought is like a 
heavy weight to the swimmer — in the end it sinks 
him. Thought always precedes action. If a man can 
once firmly convince himself that he is qualified to 
succeed, he has gained the greatest ally in the world. 
If he constantly anticipates failure, he invites failure. 
Self -distrust is the seed of a blighted harvest. Noth- 
ing so quickly robs a man of hope and courage as does 
self-fear. Hargreaves was the real inventor of the 
spinning-jenny. When he set forth his idea it was 
met with a storm of anger and abuse. In obedience 
to the popular cry he gave up his invention and died 
in obscurity and distress. Arkwright took up the 
abandoned idea, pressed it upon the commercial 
world in spite of the bitterest opposition, and won 
both wealth and fame. 

Some years before Alexander Graham Bell per- 
fected his telephone, Daniel Drawbraugh, of Mill- 
town, Pennsylvania, constructed an electrical instru- 
ment by which the human voice could be heard 
through a wire, but he had not sufficient SELF-RELI- 
ANCE to push his invention upon the general notice, 
and Bell won the rewards which Drawbraugh might 
have shared. John Fitch, a clever and brilliant man, 
anticipated Fulton's steamboat by many years. He 
built and ran several steam-propelled ships with 



150 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

complete success. Failing to arouse enthusiasm in 
America, he went to France in the hope of finding 
appreciation. There he was disappointed also. He 
filed his plans and specifications with the American 
Consul in Paris and returned home. Some time later 
these documents were lent to Robert Fulton, who 
immediately saw the practical value of the invention. 
Fitch struggled on for a little while against discour- 
agement and neglect, and then, losing faith in him- 
self, he committed suicide in 1798. Nine years later, 
Fulton returned to America from France, made his 
successful experiment with the steamship "Clermont" 
on the Hudson, and won the rewards and honors 
which might have gone to Fitch had he possessed a 
larger degree of SELF-RELIANCE. 

Other reasons may sometimes be given to account 
for success, but we are confident that the highest 
achievements of history have not been accomplished 
without SELF-RELIANCE. Occasionally we find 
men who believe themselves to be out of the race for 
success because Nature has apparently handicapped 
them with some physical defect. While this may dis- 
qualify a man from achieving great results in one or 
another direction, it does not shut all of the doors of 
opportunity. Instead of striking the flag to our 
limitations and misfortunes, it is the first duty of 
courage to discount and remedy them. They are 
no excuse for failure. Of all the voices that speak 
words of delusion in our ears, none is more persuasive 
and enervating than the whine of our own disabilities. 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 151 

"If you were built like other men," the voice says, 
"there could be no excuse. But you were sent into 
the world so imperfectly equipped, so foredoomed to 
failure, that no one can reasonably expect you to 
win.'' The man who listens is lost. Get up and 
fight ; determine that you will not be beaten ; call up 
your reserves of energy and make the most of 
every faculty and power you possess; above all 
things, march forward in the conquering spirit of 
SELF-RELIANCE. 

In thousands of instances deficiencies and deformi- 
ties have not only not checked, but have been the 
spur which has driven the man on to success. Most 
of the world's greatest achievements have been 
against odds compared with which ours are probably 
not worth noticing. Sir Walter Scott and Lord 
Byron were both cripples, and Sir Walter wrote 
much of his best work when writhing in pain; Alex- 
ander H. Stephens, the brilliant Southern leader and 
one of the most powerful men who ever sat in the 
United States Senate, was twisted and gnarled by 
suffering and unable to walk a step while the country 
was ringing with the fame of his matchless eloquence; 
Nelson with only one eye and one arm broke Napo- 
leon's power upon the sea; Parkman the historian 
was almost blind and a chronic invalid; Fawcett, 
England's most famous Postmaster-General, was 
totally blind, as is Herreshoff, the skilful yacht 
designer; Galileo continued his work long after sight 
failed, and Milton wrote " Paradise Lost" with light 



152 IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 

denied; Bunyan was in jail when he composed "The 
Pilgrim's Progress," so was Sir Walter Raleigh when 
he penned the "History of the World"; Richard 
Baxter, who spent most of his life alternating between 
a sick bed and a prison, nevertheless gave to the world 
one hundred and eighty-six ponderous volumes; 
Darwin, the apostle of evolution, could not work 
more than two hours a day; James Watt, the father 
of the steam engine, was so frail and fragile from 
disease that he could only work by snatches between 
attacks; Dr. Kane, the most intrepid of explorers 
and travelers, made his terrible journeys, even his 
famous dash for the Pole, when crippled with rheu- 
matism and in momentary danger of death from 
heart disease; Robert Louis Stevenson did all of his 
finest writing after he was doomed to die of consump- 
tion — when he could not write he dictated, when he 
dare not speak for fear of bringing on a hemorrhage he 
still dictated upon his fingers in the deaf and dumb 
alphabet; Thomas Spencer Baynes, the editor of the 
"Encyclopaedia Britannica," accomplished his monu- 
mental task with only the half of one lung; Beethoven 
composed his noblest music when deaf and unable to 
hear a note, and Edison, the wizard of the world of 
invention, is likewise very deaf; Francis Huber, the 
Swiss naturalist, became a celebrated entomologist 
and writer upon natural history after becoming 
totally blind; John Richard Green wrote his "History 
of the English People" upon his death bed, his friends 
averring that only his indomitable will kept him 



IDEALS OF THE I. C. S. FRATERNITY 153 

alive to its close ; Cecil Rhodes was sent out to Africa 
to die of an incurable disease, but before he obeyed 
the summons he carved an empire out of the Dark 
Continent and made himself one of the richest men 
on earth; and, to go back across the centuries, Julius 
Caesar, the world conqueror, was an epileptic and 
throughout his marvelous campaigns his life was 
never worth an hour's purchase. 

Are we not shamed into silence and whipped into 
action by such a roll-call of heroes? The maimed, 
the broken, the disabled, the diseased, have accom- 
plished history's most glorious deeds. Our ills and 
ailments, our defects and disqualifications, are a 
mere bagatelle by the side of theirs. To refuse the 
challenge of life on account of them is a million times 
worse than defeat — it is cowardice. 

SELF-RELIANCE is the habit of relying upon 
oneself. We must rest our claim to success upon 
the powers that are stored within us. We must confi- 
dently believe that we are equipped to meet every 
emergency, to overcome every obstacle, to win every 
battle. In study there is no subject that we cannot 
master; in life, there is no problem that we cannot 
solve. To cultivate SELF-RELIANCE we must 
practice it. We cannot buy or borrow it; we do not 
need to because we have it. Simply use it; be Self- 
Reliant! 



MAR 23 1308 



